The Difference
by madrigals
Summary: For all you know, this could be the difference between what you need and what you want to be. Carter/OFC, AU seasons 7-10, sequel to KEEP BREATHING
1. mars attacks pt 1

Welcome to the sequel to "Keep Breathing." This story begins in Season 7. Updates when possible - if you like, review!  


* * *

_Hello, good morning, how ya do? What makes your rising sun so new? I could use a fresh beginning too. All of my regrets are nothing new. So, this is the way that I say I need you. This is the way that I'm learning to breathe. I'm learning to crawl, and I'm finding that you and you alone can break my fall.  
— __'Learning to Breathe', Switchfoot_

**MARS ATTACKS (part one)  
October 2000**

"Hey-hey, there's my favorite baby sister!"

She rolled her eyes at Malucci's exuberant greeting. By habit, her nose wrinkled up into an indescribable expression: a reaction typical of their relationship. She frequently found herself rolling her eyes and pretending she didn't know Dave Malucci, mostly because it was so easy to do.

It was just before seven a.m. — that quiet point in the morning when the night shift packed up their things and welcomed the day. She wasn't particularly fond of this hour. Since June, she had been zen with night shifts in the ER. This hour meant she had to go home. It meant she had time to sit and wallow in her thoughts, instead of keeping herself as busy as possible.

Of course, it wasn't simply the fact that she had to leave soon that was troubling her. There were other things, other thoughts plaguing her mind.

"Sure you don't wanna stick around, Gracie?" Malucci continued unabashedly, despite her lack of acknowledging his greeting, tapping some keys on the computer and performing his usual clock-in procedures. "I heard a dirty little rumor that we're short a few too many nurses."

"Hell no."

A few months ago, she would have said yes.

"But it'll be _so_ much fun! Little old ladies and drug seekers galore!"

"I am out of here before Weaver catches me, okay?"

Malucci plowed on, seemingly ignorant of her response as she scribbled furiously on a set of charts, trying to finish her duties so she could clock out quickly. He continued, "And think how exciting trauma'll be with the surgeon shortage—"

"Haleh's lucky I don't murder you on the spot."

"And make the nurses work even harder?"

She said nothing, breezing quickly through her paperwork. Malucci tapped his hands against the counter and watched her silently, and when he got nothing, he embraced what was beginning to become rapidly clear. With a certain amount of gentle tact, he asked softly, "You found out he's starting back today, didn't you?"

Gracie seemed agitated by the question. She slammed her finished charts down on the counter, nearly strangled herself as she pulled her stethoscope down from where it hung around her neck. She rushed to clock out, her fingers clacking away at the keyboard as she asked with some assumption, "Where is he?"

"In the lounge."

"Well, that's great, good for him."

"Gracie—"

But she had to leave. She wouldn't have any of this. She waved him off dismissively, bundling her stethoscope in her hands and stuffing it into her bag under the desk, the one she had been too lazy to put in her locker at the start of her shift. She suddenly found herself grateful she hadn't. "If I really wanted your opinion, Dave, I would buy a plane ticket to another state of mind, okay?"

"But if there's something I can do..."

"You could bring home juice boxes."

Home was a two bedroom apartment the siblings were renting together, where moving boxes still littered the halls. It wasn't a place they saw each other often at, mostly because each worked a different set of shifts that found themselves running into one another at the hospital more often than their new apartment, but it was, at least, home. A situation Gracie was trying to get used to, while she waited on the sale of the house she had shared with her deceased grandfather to be finalized. It was, more often than not, a learning process.

"Fine," he said, throwing his hand up in exasperation. She pulled on her coat and looped her bag over her shoulder, ready to make a break for it.

But then a tall, lanky, familiar doctor stepped out of the lounge.

The expression on his face was painful to ignore.

"Gracie," Carter breathed, taking a simple step forward to where she was frozen in place just in front of the admit desk. She thawed quickly, pointed a finger at him, and proceeded to storm towards the ambulance bay doors.

"No," she said simply.

Malucci gave Carter a knowing look, eyebrows raised, pretending to busy himself with charts while the other doctor jogged to catch up with her.

"Gracie!" Carter called as he ran out into the cool morning air, his white coat flapping behind him, both of them receiving strange looks as he chased after her.

"I'm not doing this right now, John."

"Then when _are_ we gonna do it?"

She didn't respond, and he had to catch her by the elbow in order to get her to stop. Gracie gave him a petulant look, quickly segueing into an uncomfortable grimace. This was the last thing she had wanted to deal with today.

"Please," he urges quietly, his grasp on her lightening. "Just... meet me after my shift?" A pause. "I haven't seen or heard from you in months, I didn't even see you at the airport... just, please. Meet with me, talk to me. About this. Please?"

It took a moment for her to say anything, her gaze unwavering as she inhaled deeply and studied his features. He looked better. Healthier. The slightest stubble on his jaw, no bags under his eyes, an easy gait. But like how painful it had been to ignore him — moments ago, for the couple weeks he'd been back in town, the few months he'd been gone — it hurt to speak now. She nodded.

"I'll meet you at Doc's," she said softly. "Page me when you're off."

He watched as she turned and walked away.

----


	2. mars attacks pt 2

**MARS ATTACKS (part two)  
October 2000**

Night had fallen by the time she pushed open the door to Doc Magoo's. She came in street clothes: slim-fitting black pants and a blue blouse, a warm black coat to keep the chill at bay. She spotted him immediately, hunkered down in a booth, cigarette smoke wafting around him as he cradled a cup of coffee. Their eyes met, and it took a minute for her to coax her feet forward, gripping the shoulder strap of her bag as she slid into the seat opposite him, easing against the leather and resting her belongings next to her. For a moment, nothing was said.

He shifted, tipping his ashes into a little glass tray. "You moved."

She regarded him with an open gaze, appearing slightly resigned to the conversation. She exhaled quietly. "It was time," she said simply.

"Has it been long?"

"Maybe a month. I might have a buyer soon."

Carter pursed his lips and nodded, drawing the cigarette back to his mouth and taking a drag. He blew smoke through his nostrils. The silence was palpable, and it remained even as the waitress breezed by and accepted her order for tea. He returned his cigarette to the ashtray. "You look... you look good."

Gracie breathed a chuckle, glancing down at her hands. As if this couldn't get any more uncomfortable. She had fought with herself all day over coming here, lost a couple hours of necessary daytime sleep over it, found it difficult to concentrate when trying to accomplish her usual business. Her reasons for doing so were long and complicated. Gracie wasn't even sure she understood them. She picked at a fingernail. "So do you," she replied quietly.

"What happened, Gracie?"

She peered up at him from under long eyelashes. She shrugged. The waitress returned with her mug of tea, and Gracie busied her hands with steeping her teabag. "What do you want me to say, John?"

"I want you to stop avoiding the issue."

Silence. Her hands hovered around her mug, and he took it upon himself to continue speaking. "Ninety days of rehab. No phone call. No letter. No welcome back at the airport. I come home, find that you've moved, that you've taken night shifts... you avoid me at all costs—"

"The problem with people who have no vices," Gracie interrupted quietly, hands still hovering, her gaze fixated on her tea, "is that generally, you can be sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."

Silence. Carter stared at her knowingly. "You have vices, Gracie."

"I have a lot of things."

His brows raised slightly, and he continued to gaze openly at her, and nothing was said until she finally relented, exhaling a sigh and lifting the mug to her lips. She sipped, and visibly fought for words. "I... I said I'd wait."

"And?"

"Things change."

"Are you angry with me?"

"No," she replied, a little too quickly. The truth seemed more obvious.

Carter sighed, and it was quiet for a long time, the two of them sitting with their coffee and tea in a haze of cigarette smoke. He stubbed the butt out in the ashtray, ran a hand over his hair, looking like he, too, was fighting for words. "I've been going to meetings," he said quietly. "Abby's working the steps with me."

The one who had gotten him to this point in the first place. Gracie sniffed, and he watched her. "I want to apologize to you," he said gently.

"I'm part of your steps?"

Instead of directly replying, he continued speaking. "I put you through... a lot. I should have been honest with you. I should have let you in. Should have done a lot of things." He examined her face carefully. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, you know; I mean, someday we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject—"

"I mean it, Gracie. I'm sorry."

"I forgive you."

A pause. He pursed his lips. She had given her forgiveness freely, and it was clear to him that a lot more needed to be done. He sighed. "So much has changed," he said, a bit wearily. "Haleh's nurse manager, Chen's pregnant, Malucci's blond _and_ you two are living together..."

"He's a dad, too."

_"What?"_

She nodded slightly, still carrying a tendency to avoid his general eyeline. "A son. Joey. He's three, he stays with us on the weekends."

"You're an aunt."

"It shocked me too."

He seemed more than shocked. "Wow," Carter breathed, running another hand through his hair. "I guess I missed... everything."

"You'll catch up."

Silence. After a moment, she chuckled a bit awkwardly and began to shift in her seat. "I should go," Gracie said, sounding mildly apologetic.

He straightened. "Do you have to?"

"I'm on tonight."

She pulled some money out of her bag, but he shook his head firmly. "It's on me," he said. She hesitated slipping it back into her wallet, but did so, looping the bag over her shoulder and standing. And what he asked next almost went unsaid.

"Gracie," Carter said, catching her before she can leave. She turned to him, standing a few feet away, an expectant look on her features, looking like she wanted nothing more than to leave. He took a minute to say it. "Will we ever be back to the way we were?"

What do you say to such a question?

"I guess you'll figure something out," Gracie replied quietly.

----


	3. flight of fancy

**FLIGHT OF FANCY  
November 2000**

Haleh cornered Gracie at her locker, just as she was putting on her coat.

"Africa, I need a favor."

She didn't like the sound of that. Gracie froze, a slow understanding creeping over her features. She laughed, a bit sarcastically. "Oh, no. No."

"Please! Weaver's off and we're _completely_ short-staffed!"

"I've been on all night!"

Haleh was refusing to let up. "It'll just be for a few hours, I promise—"

"That's what they always say," Gracie interrupts, reaching into her locker for her bag. "Then a few hours turns into six, six turns into twelve..."

"You can take a nap if that's the case."

Gracie paused and turned slowly to peer at the older nurse. She said nothing for a moment. Then, sounding a bit grudging, "Four hours. That's it."

"Thank you!"

Haleh rushed out of the lounge, and Gracie found herself reluctantly stuffing her coat and bag back into her locker, looking in a bit of disbelief at the fact that she was actually agreeing to stay on duty. She looped her stethoscope around her neck, adjusted her hospital ID, and stepped hesitantly out of the room, making her way towards admit. Malucci was waiting behind the desk.

"She got to you, didn't she?" Malucci chuckled.

"Thank you for shopping at S-Mart," Gracie grumbled, pushing him away from the computer and pecking decisively at the keyboard.

"You need sleep."

"I need a lot of things," she retorted, picking up a nearby phone and dialing a number Malucci did not recognize. She held the receiver to her ear, and after a moment of his hovering over her shoulder, Gracie shot an annoyed glare in his direction. "Do you _mind_?"

She was left to her own devices, but he couldn't help but overhear her apologetically introducing herself. "I'm not going to make it this morning," she said, and Malucci raised his eyebrows, sliding up next to her.

"Make it to what?" Gracie glared at him in response.

"No, tonight won't work," she interrupted the person on the phone. "Gotta work. Yeah, I'll get a hold of that. Thank you. See you tomorrow."

They said goodbye, and Gracie hung up the phone, only to be interrupted once more with the sound of a nosy brother. "Make it to what?" Malucci queried again, gazing at her with raised brows and a mildly amused, expectant expression.

"None of your business."

"C'mon, Gracie, make it to what?"

"Do you not know the meaning of mind your own business?"

"Didn't Mum ever teach you about not keeping secrets?"

But she was already preparing for her escape: rifling through charts of newly-triaged patients. "Oh, _look_, Dave, Willie's here! I better go."

"Gracie..." Malucci said warningly. Yet she was already walking away.

Willie was a thirty-two year old intermittently-homeless bipolar alcoholic. He was a regular. He liked his whiskey, _a lot_. He also liked IV ativan and dilaudid. What he didn't like was getting a visit from his friendly neighborhood law enforcement when he was above .234. Willie wasn't so nice to the cops.

But he _loved_ Gracie.

She found him in Curtain Area Three, but realization came too late: Carter's name was signed to the chart. She wanted to kick herself for her inobservance. Gracie swept back the curtain and found that he had already beaten her to their patient. To say she wanted to crawl in a hole and hide would be putting it lightly.

She couldn't find the words to speak at first. He looked good. His hair cut, his face neatly shaven. "John," she mumbled awkwardly and handed him the chart, looking everywhere but at him directly. She focused on the patient in front of them, a means to fill the void before Carter could acknowledge her himself. "Well, hey there, Willie," Gracie greeted the dirty, rubbery mess with an overly saccharine tone. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves. "Been laying into Jim Beam again?"

"Will you marry meeeeee?"

Carter eyed her as he scribbled notes into the chart. She did so well with patients like these. "Now, Willie, you know I can't do that," she said matter-of-factly, applying a blood pressure cuff to his arm. "What would all my other boyfriends say? They'd be so angry with you."

"Other boyfriends?" She glanced up at Carter's words, which sounded wry and more like a statement than a question. She knew that tone. It was the kind of meaningful inflection that brought that gaze upon her, the one she squirmed awkwardly under. The one that made her think he could see right through her.

Maybe he could.

Instead of prodding at her uncomfortable air, Carter pressed on. "Chronic belly pain," he said quietly. "Again. Nine out of ten."

"Can I have dilaudid, Gracieeeeee?"

"Now, Willie, you know I can't just do that," Gracie chided, reaching to take the chart out of Carter's hands, grateful for the change of subject. Willie shifted with what appeared to be melodrama.

"But Gracieeeeee, it hurts..."

Carter didn't seem to be buying into Willie's claims, mostly because he was very obviously drunk. But Gracie eyed their patient carefully, a hand on her hip, a loose grip on his chart with the other. "You got us to repair a mild hernia two weeks ago, Willie," she pointed out sternly, "you've been in here _three times_ since then for uncontrolled pain. Not to mention the fact that you're drunk."

"I would never lie to you, Gracieeeeee..."

She peered down at Carter's written orders, listened to his sigh as he moved to leave. "Prep a banana bag, Gracie," Carter said, his voice sounding deep and weary. He turned his back, and despite herself, Gracie bounded after him.

"John, wait a minute. Something's not right."

He turned around quickly, appearing tall and lanky in the middle of the hall, eyebrows raised. He seemed just as surprised as she was at how she was chasing this. He chuckled in a bit of disbelief, but looked at her, _really_ looked at her. When he said nothing, Gracie jumped on her chance to make her case.

"I think he's real this time, John — his abdomen is distended, you barely did an exam — he's got nine out of ten pain and has, like I said," Gracie insisted breathlessly, "been in here three times since his surgery. He could have a post-op adhesion. Incision's WNL, but I really think he's real this time."

He pursed his lips, and for a moment, said nothing. "Or he could have alcoholic ketoacidosis, or he could, you know, just be one of _those_ people."

"_Those_ people," Gracie repeated dryly.

"You look tired, Gracie."

"I'm more than tired, my drunk might have a small bowel obstruction and the doc signed to the chart won't even do a full work-up," she retorted.

"Gracieeeeee!"

Gracie turned on her heel just in time to witness Willie spewing vomit over the side of his gurney. Her shoulders dropped in obvious annoyance. Carter plucked the chart out of her hands and began scribbling extra notes. "CBC, Chem 7, BUN and creatinine, UA and liver panels — and I'll do an ultrasound."

"Don't agree with me because you think it'll make me happy."

"I'm not," he said, handing back the chart, "I wouldn't dream of it."

"You're not going to finish your exam?"

He peered over her shoulder, back toward Willie and his puddle of puke, and smirked slightly. "You can take care of that vomit first."

And with those words, he walked away, calling over his shoulder, "I still want that banana bag!"

Gracie watched him leave, stomach churning.

----


	4. rescue me

**RESCUE ME  
Thanksgiving Day 2000**

"Maybe you should stop being secretive and tell me."

"Dave, maybe _you_ should learn how to mind your own business."

His eyes were focused on her as she bustled about the kitchen. Her disorientation was obvious, and for good reason: she still didn't quite know her way around the room. She hadn't spent much time there during the span of two months they'd lived there, let alone unpacked the moving boxes that still cluttered the halls. Gracie slammed a drawer shut and returned to her spot hovering over the stove, where she was scrambling eggs in an iron skillet. "Your business is my business," Malucci replied dryly. She did not have to turn around for her scowl to be palpable.

"Aunt Gracie, I need ketchup," a little voice chimed in, and for a moment, Gracie gave pause. To hear herself referred to in such a manner was still surprising, and it was plain to Malucci, albeit shortlived. Her recovery took the form of a glance over her shoulder, a warm, nurturing smile for the young boy, and a reach into the fridge for a bottle of ketchup. She came to little Joey's side, squirted a decent-sized dollop of the condiment on his plate, and placed the bottle firmly on the table, giving her brother a stern, lingering look. Malucci laughed.

"Is that supposed to scare me?"

Gracie returned to the stovetop, grumbling. A moment later, Malucci cleared his throat and spoke. "All I'm saying," he said, "is that unless you're dealing drugs, there's really no point in you being quiet about whatever it is you're doing."

"Why on earth would I be dealing drugs?"

"There's good money in it, you know."

She ignored him, turning off the stovetop and wiping her hands off on her scrubs. With a sigh, she retorted, "I have to get to work."

"To work, or to some super secret meeting?"

"Goodbye, Dave," Gracie retorted in a no-nonsense tone, tugging on her coat and a pair of mittens. She pressed a kiss to little Joey's head of floppy dark brown hair before looping a scarf around her neck, slipping her bag over her shoulder and beginning to make a break for the front door.

But she was halted by the sound of her brother's voice. "Are you going to be home tonight?"

"Why?"

Malucci chortled loudly. "It's Thanksgiving!"

Gracie didn't understand. It wasn't as if it were a holiday she had grown up celebrating, and even after being in the States for several years, she still didn't find much merit in commemorating the day. "We'll get my patented Thanksgiving pizza, courtesy of Domino's." Joey seemed excited by this prospect.

After a moment of consideration, Gracie rolled her eyes and opened the front door. "There's eggs on the stove," she called over her shoulder.

"Was that a yes?"

By the tone of his voice, it was obvious that they both knew she would be home that evening: pouring glasses of juice for Joey and insisting they use plates.

Later, after stopping off at the one place her brother seemed desperate to know about (only encouraging her struggle to grasp onto privacy), Gracie found herself strolling through County's doors, looking discontent. She threw a half-hearted wave to Conni, before brushing into the lounge and coming face to face with Carter.

She hadn't been expecting him, that much was certain. He watched her steadily as she regained her composure and stormed to her locker, a mug in one hand as the other idly poured in the contents of a coffee carafe. "What's the matter?" Carter asked after a quiet moment. She responded absently amidst a frenzied search.

"Oh, my day just seems to be following Murphy's Law."

"Murphy's Law?"

"Anything that can go wrong," Gracie replied breathlessly, stopping suddenly when a sheaf of papers were discovered at the far back of the top shelf, "...will."

Silence, save for the sound of Carter setting down the coffee carafe. He watched silently as her disdain at the discovery of these papers became obvious, her hand rising to grip at her hair, her shoulders drooping. "Something important?"

"Should have been," she replied after a moment, her tone almost wistful. She folded the papers up in her hand and stuffed them into her bag, then proceeded to remove her coat and put away her things. And that was that, a simple interaction that did not go over Gracie's head. A mild sadness began to sink into her bones.

"Looks like it's gonna rain," Carter remarked idly. She hummed a response.

And after a moment, Gracie found herself turning around and asking, "How long is this going to continue?"

He peered back at her without expression, coffee mug halfway to his lips, and she couldn't help but muse on how attractive he looked when the slightest bit of stubble was growing in along his jawline.

"This is how you really wanted it, Gracie."

Her mouth felt dry. She found herself staring into her locker, hand resting against the cool metal, searching for any sort of satisfaction.

"I didn't want _this_," Gracie murmured, very nearly too quiet to hear.

But he did.

"You don't know what you want."

She didn't have to turn around to know when he left the room.

----


	5. the greatest of gifts

**THE GREATEST OF GIFTS  
December 2000**

What pained her was that he was right.

He knew her well enough to know when she was being completely ridiculous, the idea of which was not totally lost on her. Maybe she was. Maybe she was too many things, but Gracie, if anything, was a creature of habit. Just like how she rose every morning with the dawn, running until her lungs shuddered and legs gave up, returning to familiar faces — so she spoke stubborn platitudes.

She had watched him leave during the shift change, from night to day, trekking out into a light snowfall and a darkened sky. He looked weary, but that was to be expected. He had been on call all night, covering while Mark and Elizabeth took a trip to New York. She did not think much of it when he left, for it was officially Christmas Eve, and the influx of vacuous holiday patients had already begun.

It was a different story when he returned.

"Hold the elevator!"

Gracie's expression was that of surprise when the elevator doors bounced back open, and a flushed, weary-looking Carter hopped inside the car. It was crowded with someone from transport and the existence of a patient on a gurney — a male heart attack victim that Gracie was escorting to be admitted upstairs — but the lanky John fit just fine. He panted, as if he had been running, adjusting his coat and brushing a few stray flakes of snow from his hair. "You're back," Gracie breathed.

"Chen's in labor."

Her eyes widened. She'd had a feeling that Chen would call on him for support, they had always been close — perhaps it was just the sheer randomness of labor that caught her off guard. "Oh, wow, she okay?"

"Sounds like it."

His response was short, absent even, his gaze focused on the glowing numbers of the panel as the elevator climbed floors. It stung a little. Gracie swallowed, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and it was clear from the look the guy from transport was giving her that she was being far too transparent in this situation. "Well, um, give her my best for me," Gracie struggled to say, but the words still came out sounding awkward.

"I will."

And that was that. He left without another word when the car reached Labor & Delivery, and Gracie found herself scrambling to save face. Transport Guy clucked his tongue, and she blatantly ignored him as she busied herself with a few last-minute notes in her patient's chart. It was a distraction from the pain.

Later, when she returned to the ER, it occurred to her that she was, perhaps, a masochist. Maybe she really did know what she wanted — to constantly torment herself, because it was all she knew how to do. Change is a troublesome thing.

It would be after the sun came up, after John had returned to busy himself in the ER amidst whispers of Chen's struggle upstairs to cope with her son's adoptive parents, that Gracie would hear the crying. The sniffles, the deep-throated sobs coming from the men's room. She found herself eavesdropping outside the restroom for a time, for a reason she couldn't really explain. The sound was familiar. Heartbreaking. And it came from a place that she understood all too well.

It took a while for her to realize who it was. Even more to summon the courage to push open the restroom door, stick her head in and say tentatively, "John?"

There was a clatter of surprise from one of the stalls. Gracie stepped inside decisively, gently shutting the door behind her and taking careful steps toward the stall in question. Silence. The lock clicked, the door opened, and suddenly a tear-stained, visibly sleep-deprived Carter was staring back at her. He was kneeling by the toilet, and looking at her appeared to be all too difficult, for it was all he could do to keep the tears at bay. "I didn't want to," Carter said, almost pleading, and for the first time Gracie noticed his hand gripped into a fist.

She knelt before him. She hushed him like a mother soothing a child, her hand reaching out to cradle his cheek. His fist loosened to reveal a pair of half-digested pills. And it's hard to say what Gracie felt in that moment. Her stomach dropped, her chin trembled. "I _didn't_," he insisted, "I just... I'm _so_ tired—"

He seemed to be on the verge of coming unglued. Had she expected this? In a way. She was far less surprised than she should have been. Carter seemed upset that she had found him this way, while Gracie found herself in a state similar to where she had been six months ago: saddened, clinging to bravery, and feeling pain for a very different reason than that morning.

Perhaps it was masochism that drove her now. She acted on pure instinct, taking him into her arms as he fought to calm himself, a strained sob escaping his throat. He was trying so hard. She hushed him, petted his hair, and in that moment all she wanted to do was cure his anguish. A realization that resonated far too strongly with Gracie.

"It's okay," she told him quietly, hugging him tightly on the restroom floor. "It's going to be alright, John. Hush now, love. You're okay."

It was their return to old.

----


	6. piece of mind

Thanks to my reviewers!  


* * *

**PIECE OF MIND  
New Year's Eve 2000**

"You look tired."

Gracie jolted from her spot at the admit desk, where she had been leaning at the counter, all but snoozing. She had bags under her eyes, either poorly concealed by makeup or peeking through after a wear-down — Carter wasn't sure. She straightened her petite frame, her expression crumpling as she worked out a kink in her neck. She looked at him with a mix of embarrassment and shy pleasure. He handed her a mug of tea, and she enveloped it in her hands, cherishing the warm ceramic against her palms. "Thank you," she told him softly.

"Long day?" Carter came to stand at her side, and Gracie found herself nonchalantly shuffling a set of papers she had been perusing underneath her charts. The action gave her a twang of guilt, but emotion was something she wasn't certain of anymore. Was she really feeling such a thing? It was like how she couldn't explain her reasons for suddenly feeling so shy around Carter. It was as if she were trying to figure how to prove herself worthy of him, and feeling all too uncertain of the process. It was new. It was something far out of her character, to be fighting off willfulness, to want to admit defeat and embrace potential.

She managed a laugh. She raised the mug to her lips and took a sip. Just the way she liked it. "I just wish that people could, for one day," Gracie remarked, "avoid lying, cheating, stealing, assaulting, raping, torturing or killing anyone."

"Peace on earth and goodwill towards men?"

"Well, it sounded nice."

"Didn't you know?" Carter asked suddenly. She found herself glancing at him, mildly curious. "12:01 on Boxing Day, peace on earth is _gone_ for another year."

He was demonstrating his point with his hands, the slightest of smirks on his lips, and Gracie couldn't help but laugh, this time full-bellied and genuine. And for a moment, it was easy to forget everything on her mind. That she had comforted this man during his confusing slip off the wagon, that she was very close to dropping from exhaustion over news she still had yet to tell anyone, that at that very moment she had a patient in Trauma Two with what she considered to be the saddest of stories. A woman who's husband had decided to celebrate early, by getting drunk and stabbing her with a kitchen knife in the upper right quadrant.

"Wish somebody would have told my patient that," Gracie shook her head. He was watching her with an open gaze that she found herself avoiding.

And for a moment, he said nothing, just the sort of open stare that spoke volumes even though the silence in between feels thorny. Then, matter-of-factly, he said, "Today is an excellent day to become a missing person."

"Too bad that too many obligations prevent such a thing from happening."

"What if I pulled some strings?"

Gracie raised an eyebrow. She wasn't sure what to make of the things he was saying. "What, just leave in the middle of a shift and ignore the wrath of Kerry?"

"Well, it sounded nice," Carter mimicked, and she couldn't hide her smile behind her mug of tea even if she tried. And it was quiet then, and she watched him with a sort of restrained interest, as if trying to figure out just what had changed in the span of a week or two. And yet she couldn't ignore the question on her mind.

Unashamedly, she asked, "have you told her yet?"

Carter sighed heavily.

"It's my New Year's resolution."

She quirked a brow and said nothing. "Really," he said, as if he desperately wanted her to know how earnest he felt about this. "I'm going to."

"I hope so," Gracie replied quietly, turning her gaze away to her charts, adjusting the button-up cardigan she wore over her scrubs and taking another sip of tea. It was clear in that moment just how important honesty would be for him.

Carter pursed his lips and walked away.

Much later, Gracie found herself alone in Trauma Two, listening to the sounds of fireworks before midnight and raucous celebration. She stood over the gurney, in the middle of completing a death kit on the woman she had cared for earlier. She had coded before ever making it to surgery, where doctors would have repaired the damage her drunk husband and his kitchen knife had done to her. Everything had been done according to protocol, Gracie mused. Even now she followed a strict education, orders for recording every last detail of the code, every tube and little scar on the deceased, preparing her for transport to the coroner. Protocol had not saved this woman. Just like how it hadn't saved her mother, father, grandparents. In the end, would it save her?

Gracie paused, expelling a breath. She rested her hand on the gurney rail, leaning back and peering down at her feet. The celebration got louder. She checked her watch; it was midnight. She barely registered the sound of familiar footsteps stopping in the doorway to the room.

A moment, and she tilted her gaze to take him in. Tall and lanky he stood, white doctor's coat brushing his shoulders, the slightest of shadows along his jawline. There was something decisive in his eyes, something she was still trying to read as he took careful steps into the room. He came to stand next to her, and save for the outside noise, all was silent. Her hands continued to grip the gurney rail.

"Finally found a buyer for the house," Gracie said quietly, looking for a bright spot to share as they stood over a shell of a woman. Silence. "Escrow begins Tuesday."

He said nothing, but she hadn't expected him to. The quiet, while restless, was vaguely comfortable. They stood side by side, and it was easy to do nothing more. One impromptu glance in his direction, and it was done — eyes connected, his arm gently touching hers. His lips pressed sweetly against hers, noses brushing as they found themselves drawn into the loveliest of kisses. It ended rather quickly, his mouth hovering over hers as he pulled away. "Happy New Year," he told her, his voice cracking slightly with disuse. Then he turned around and left.

She remained behind, watching him go with an unreadable expression.

----


	7. rock, paper, scissors

_When, a small child rambling over there by the fir trees, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong.  
Happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.  
— __Anna Pavlova_

**ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS  
January 2001**

"Gracie..."

Her bed shifted. She almost didn't notice it, but it definitely happened. Half asleep, half awake, she rolled over and stuffed a pillow over her head. She had to be dreaming. And she hadn't slept well the night before, so anyone who tried to wake her up before it was her time had to have some sort of death wish. She scrunched her eyes tighter.

"Gracie, my dear..."

As senses slowly began to flock to her, she recognized that voice, despite her stubborn attempts to stop. A loud, sleepy groan came forth, and she gripped the pillow over her head even tighter. This was already starting out to be a bad day.

But he didn't relent, his hushed, sing-song words piercing through her sleepy, foggy brain like a jolt of caffeine. She could feel his hand gently shaking her shoulder. "My little sugar cookie... my darling..."

The mattress shifted again with the addition of a much more juvenile weight. It bounced up and down. "Aunt Gracie! Wake up!"

Gracie's eyes flew open. The pillow was forcibly removed from her head, and she found herself gazing exhaustedly up at Malucci, gripping the pillowcase and grinning cheekily, and Joey, who wore a ring of chocolate frosting around his mouth and seemed very excited to hand her a sprinkle-topped chocolate cupcake of her own. "Happy birthday!" Joey exclaimed exuberantly.

"Happy birthday," Malucci echoed, and it was clear from the twinkle in his eye that he was fully aware of how obnoxious she found this wake-up call to be.

She sat up on her elbows, appearing completely incoherent, but somehow finding the comprehension to cradle the cupcake little Joey handed her. Joey plowed into her lap, and Gracie pulled him into a one-handed bear hug and kissed his floppy brown hair. "Six o'clock in the morning, and you guys are eating cupcakes?" Her voice croaked with sleepiness.

"Actually," Malucci grinned, "it's eight fifteen, and cupcakes are the breakfast of champions, right sport?"

"Dad is great!" Joey started to chant, "He got us chocolate cake!"

It took a moment for Gracie to process what was being said, but it came to her surely. "Eight fifteen?" she echoed. A look of horror fell across her features. She made an attempt to scramble out of bed, but Malucci caught her. "I overslept! I'm late for work!"

"I called Haleh," her brother reassured. "She's covering for you until noon."

Suddenly, she could breathe.

"Now, all _you_ need to worry about," Malucci remarked jubilantly, "is eating that cupcake in bed, taking a nice, long, hot shower, and saying _thank_ you, Dave, for being such an amazing brother — you really need to become more appreciative of your birthday."

Gracie stared at him with slightly narrowed eyes. But, after a moment, she bit into the cupcake, getting frosting on her nose and eliciting a cheer from her nephew. "How old are you today, Aunt Gracie?" Joey asked as she reached to adjust the basal and bolus dosages on her insulin pump with her one free hand.

"Too old, kid," she responded around a mouthful.

Malucci eyed her pointedly. Gracie swallowed. "Thank you, Dave," she mimicked with a bit of petulance. He grinned, stood, and scooped Joey up off the bed, throwing the child over his shoulder as the little one giggled loudly.

"C'mon, sport, let's let Aunt Gracie comb out her grey hairs."

She could hear Joey reply with innocent confusion as the pair disappeared from her room, "Aunt Gracie doesn't have grey hair..."

The door shut behind them, and she was left with a messy bed, pools of sunlight filtering through the window, and frosting on her nose.

After a long shower and a much healthier breakfast of granola topped with yogurt and blueberries, Gracie showed up for work, well after Joey had gone to preschool and Malucci had left for his shift. She came strolling into the admit area, clad in the usual scrubs and a grey button-up cardigan underneath her winter coat. She was brushing her hair back into a ponytail when she spotted Haleh.

"I am _so_ sorry," Gracie breathed, sidling up to Haleh as she went through some charts. "Dave was just, I don't know, but I'll make up for the time today—"

"Honey, don't even worry about it," Haleh shook her head. "It's your birthday!"

"Yeah, that's what they keep telling me," Gracie mumbled under her breath as she moved to clock in. Across the way, Malucci was sitting in a curtain area, suturing a man's arm. He pointed at her with a gloved hand.

"I told you noon, Gracie! It's 11:05!"

"You're lucky I stayed home as long as I did!" Gracie retorted, tugging off her coat, poised to take her things and toss them into the lounge.

"Better wait on that," Haleh said. She nodded at the door. "Weaver's in there giving Carter his mid-year performance evaluation."

Gracie's lips pursed together in understanding. She wondered if he was telling her now. "But," Haleh noted, handing her a chart, "I'll give you the burning chest pain in four."

"You sure know the way to a girl's heart, Haleh."

Later, after her burning chest pain had produced normal cardiac labs and received a GI cocktail, discharging with a script for Protonix, Gracie made her way down the hall back to admit. Out of the blue, she was pulled into an empty Exam Six, and Gracie yelped before finding herself face to face with Carter.

He raised a brow. Gracie fought for composure, adjusting her open cardigan over her shoulders. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to sneak up on girls?"

"We sort of skipped that lesson."

For the first time, she noticed that he was holding a box. A carefully wrapped present, encased in glossy green paper and tied with a large, emerald green fabric ribbon. A breath escaped her lips, her head tilted slightly. Her expression was that of surprise, leaning more on the pleasant side of things. Her hand came to rest on her hip, and Carter watched her studiously, as if searching for a deeper meaning in her reaction. "Is that for me?" Gracie asked after a moment, a slight laugh escaping.

"I only know one birthday girl today."

The corners of her eyes crinkled, and Carter grinned. He handed her the box. "Open it," he said, reaching to sheepishly rub the back of his neck.

"You know how I feel about my birthday," Gracie noted, sounding mildly disapproving as she sat on the edge of a gurney, examining the edges of the box with her fingertips; but she couldn't hide her delight, however small. Not even from him.

"Yeah, yeah, just open it."

"What, did you get your man-servant to wrap this?"

Carter laughed, his hands coming to rest as he watched her very carefully begin to undo the wrapping. "Something like that," he returned.

There were no words as she tossed the elaborate ribbon to the side, as she gently worked the glossy paper from the box. When she was done, she stopped and stared. It was a shoe box. She glanced up at Carter quizzically.

He nodded encouragingly. "Go on."

She lifted the lid, carefully sifted through a bed of tissue paper, and lifted out a pointe shoe. It was very old and withered, battered with obvious use, the silk slightly yellowed and one of the ribbons frayed. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. Breathless, she said nothing. Carter spoke.

"It was worn by Anna Pavlova," he said quietly. Silence. "Took some time to track down."

She knew immediately. The box of the shoe had been curved with the addition of a piece of hard wood on the sole, a trademark of Pavlova's. Acquiring it would have cost a pretty penny. She ran her hand over the toe and looked up at Carter, eyes wide. "Do you like it?" He looked concerned.

"Yes," Gracie whispered, eyes still round. Silence. "I, just... wow. John, this is _so_ thoughtful. I love it, I really do. Thank you."

She left the shoe and box behind on the gurney as she stood to take him into her arms, a firm hug. They lingered, evidently far too reluctant to let go of each other. "I'm glad," Carter said. He pressed his lips to her hair, inhaled the lavender scent, and all Gracie could think about in that moment was whether he had actually said anything to Weaver. It was like a nagging splinter.

She was beginning to learn that there were always precautions to understanding what you want.

----


	8. thy will be done

**THY WILL BE DONE  
February 2001**

"I can't believe you talked me into this."

She was giving Carter a very pointed look as she arrived for work that afternoon, strolling into the lounge with a dry cleaning bag slung over her shoulder. He glanced up from where he was pouring a cup of coffee and shook his head. "For the children, Gracie," he mimicked the response she had given the night before. "That _is_ a formal dress, right?"

She sighed melodramatically, opening her locker and hanging up the dry cleaning bag inside. "Yes, John, contrary to popular belief, I _do_ listen on occasion."

"Let me see it," Carter said, turning around and raising his coffee cup to his lips, a grin on his features. The door to the lounge opened before she could reply.

"See what?" Chuny asked, rather innocently. There was a certain connotation to her tone that made Gracie look at her with narrowed eyes.

"Africa's coming with me to a family function tonight," Carter replied, motioning to Gracie as she rummaged around in her locker.

"As a favor," Gracie interrupted. Chuny chortled loudly as she went to grab a yogurt out of the fridge.

"She won't show me her dress."

"Of course she won't," Chuny said, that same knowing tone to her voice as she made her way back towards the door, yogurt in hand. "She's got to keep an air of mystery."

Gracie glanced over her shoulder and glared at her giggling co-worker as she left. "_Thanks_, Chuny," she noted sarcastically.

"You make dinner and dancing at the history museum sound like a chore."

She peered at Carter as she tugged off her coat. "Well," Gracie retorted very pointedly, "like I told you before, I don't dance anymore, so—"

"I'm betting a few of my smooth moves will coax it out of you."

"Is that right?"

Carter grinned. "You heard me."

Gracie laughed, untangling her hospital ID from her light cardigan as she stuffed her coat and bag inside her locker. "I'm doing you a favor," she said, draping her stethoscope around her neck, "don't I deserve some kind of amnesty?"

"What favors? You _jumped_ at the chance to bore yourself to death."

"I beg to differ."

He was chuckling, and she was having a difficult time hiding the smile on her face as she shut the metal door and made to leave. He had a tendency to do that to her a lot lately. Even with the nagging at the back of her mind, for many reasons, she still found this to be true. The lightest of smiles curving her lips, a little skip in her step as she made her way out to admit, grabbed a chart and went to usher a patient sitting in chairs to an exam room. She found a woman hunched over a plastic basin, a steady stream of blood coming from both nostrils as she spit and coughed up blood and clots.

"Oh, wow," was Gracie's first reaction, reaching instinctively into her pockets for a pair of latex globes. She'd seen some pretty bad nosebleeds before, but this was truly horrifying. "Valerie, is it?" She crouched down by the twenty-something woman's side as she pulled on her gloves. "I'm so sorry about the wait. We have a bed for you now. That nosebleed, it's just not stopping, is it?"

Valerie spoke shakily as Gracie helped her stand, making sure her head remained square over the basin. "Oh, it's okay... I just need some gauze or something, to mop up the blood."

"I can do that," Gracie said, carefully escorting the woman to Curtain Area One. She was shaky on her feet, and by the amount of blood in the basin, she was losing volume fast — she shouldn't have been waiting in chairs for so long. Gracie spoke calmly and reassuringly with the young woman, but it was growing increasingly clear to her that her patient was in trouble. "But I'm pretty sure you're going to soak right through it. Have you had any injuries recently? Like hitting your head, or your nose?"

Gracie helped the woman sit on the gurney, unwrapping a wad of gauze and holding it to her nose as she helped her tilt her head back. By now, her face was bloodstained, and with even the slightest removal of the gauze, more blood came gushing out. "I had a trans-sphenoidal resection of a pituitary tumor," Valerie told her, her voice sounding nasally around the words she had so obviously learned through constant doctor's visits. They had punched through the bone above her top teeth to reach her pituitary gland. Gracie nodded with understanding and peered at the gauze — she was already soaked through. She unwrapped some more while the woman coughed up another clot into the basin. "I've been recovering okay, but I just developed this massive nosebleed..."

"Okay, Val? Is it okay if I call you that?" Gracie asked, holding a fresh piece of gauze to her nose. Valerie nodded the best she could. "I'm going to get a doctor, and we're going to take care of this — this is a _lot_ of blood, but I don't want you to worry, alright? Just keep your head over the basin, I'll be right back."

She met her brother at admit, the first doctor she could find. She exhaled and motioned for him. "C'mon Dave, I've got blood and gore, your favorite."

Malucci's eyes lit up. She briefed him on the patient's history, then expressed her concerns. "I'm worried about her airway," Gracie remarked, the two of them eyeing the woman from admit. "But she might aspirate if we lay her back to intubate. She's going on 500 cc's in the basin."

"Think a catheter might work?"

They glanced at each other. Gracie shrugged. "Worth a shot," she said.

He thought a moment, then reached for the chart in her hands to scribble something down. "Set up for nasal balloons, I'll be there in a minute. And let's also start two large-bore IV's; draw a CBC, clotting factors, type and cross-match. You can regale me with why exactly you've got a date with Carter while I insert."

Gracie groaned and snatched back the chart. "It's not a date!"

"Like hell it isn't."

Some time later, after Malucci had inserted a catheter into each of Valerie's nostrils, inflating the balloons with sterile water in an effort to stop the bleeding — an effort Gracie was proud of him for, as it was quite a challenge to insert them properly with all the blood — the patient had continued to bleed around the balloons. An ENT consult had come down, removed the catheters and packed each side of her nose with about fifty yards of Vaseline gauze packing. Gracie, still grumbling about her brother's interrogation, couldn't help but feel bad for the woman. All that gauze packing looked horribly uncomfortable, and yet she was still bleeding through. Her pulse had risen to the one-forties despite the fluid boluses Gracie kept hanging for her, and it was while she was attempting to routinely suction up some of the blood — her patient had this point having quite a difficult time speaking — that she decided she would need a transfusion. Between the suction and the basin, Valerie had lost almost a liter of blood.

Caring for the patient had taken much of her shift. It had required the ENT attending to come down, remove the packing and insert a Foley into each nare. Balloons inflated, catheters pulled tight, clamped outside the nose with hemostat to provide tamponade in the posterior pharynx; after which she had packed each nostril with more Vaseline gauze than she'd ever thought could fit into one person's head. But, it worked — the bleeding finally stopped. When they'd measured, the woman had lost a total of 2100 cc's of blood. It was after her harried return from the ICU, where Gracie had transferred the woman for further monitoring and blood transfusions, that she caught the attention of Abby.

"Carter's looking for you," Abby called when she showed no sign of slowing down. Gracie nodded, a bit frenzied, as if she could already tell what Abby was going to say. "He told me to tell you ten minutes!"

"I know, I know! Thanks!"

She was running late. She had planned to be ready to leave some time ago, but had gotten tied up in the transfer. She moved frenetically, clocking out, rushing into the lounge to pull her things out of her locker, the dry cleaning bag swaying against her calves as she nearly skidded down the hall into the restroom.

Getting dressed happened in record time. Off went the scrubs as she shimmied into a black shutter-pleated charmeuse dress, the back cut out with a button-loop closure at the nape of the neck. The fabric fell to knee-length, brushing against her legs as she stepped into gold heels and struggled to stuff her scrubs and sneakers into her bag without tripping. She took a minute to catch her breath before stepping out of the stall a little more calmly, heels clacking against the floor as she stepped up to the mirror. It took a moment or two to touch up her makeup, slightly longer to ensure that her hair was tied up into a stylish bun, and when all was said and done, Gracie found herself staring at her reflection and wondering just what the hell she was doing.

Her fingertips ran along the straight neckline of her dress, gently brushed the gold chain and pearl pendant that fell against her collarbone. Her eye makeup was slightly darker than she usually wore it, a nod from day to night. She had a man waiting outside for her, whom she was more than uncertain of.

What the hell?

It took a little effort to get herself moving. Step one, two — one foot in front of the other, grasping handles to swing doors open. A wolf whistle followed her from admit as she made her way to the lounge; it sounded like Kovac. She was too busy giving him a playful glare over her shoulder, as she reached to push the lounge door open, that she didn't notice when the door swung open without her.

Carter stood in the doorway. He wore a tuxedo, dressed rather sharply indeed. Gracie blinked. Both of them seemed to be taken aback by the other.

She was the first to speak. "Well, don't you look handsome?"

He seemed sheepish, almost shy, the kind of behavior one expects out of a first date. _It's just a favor_, she reminded herself. "I could say the same for you," he said, the slightest of smiles. "We'd better get going."

He helped her slip on her thick winter coat, and they were given pointed looks from those at admit as they walked by. Gracie nonchalantly looked away, scratching the side of her nose as he placed a hand on the small of her back and led her out the ambulance bay doors. "Did you get a haircut?" she asked, a means to fill the awkward silence.

"Yeah."

"Oh."

Gracie pursed her lips. The chilly night air stung her cheeks as they made their way out to the street. "Escrow closed today," she suggested with an air of hopefulness, and for a moment she found herself wondering why she felt so desperate to keep a conversation going.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's a drop in the bucket compared to—"

They stopped in their tracks when they arrived at a parked limousine, her words trailing off at the sight of it. "—what you obviously have," Gracie breathed. He was chuckling as he turned to look at her. "A _limo_?"

"My grandparents like spectacle," Carter sighed, reaching to open the door for her.

"I see."

He stopped her before she slid into the car, his hand resting gently on her forearm, standing close enough that she was able to catch his cologne. He licked his lips, examined her features, and said simply, "I told Weaver."

Her expression softened. She knew how difficult it had been. Relief swelled over her, something that even he could read. She expelled a breath and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. Then she stepped back, and before she had time to really consider her actions, gently brushed her lips against his.

She pulled away quickly and stepped into the rear of the vehicle, leaving Carter to purse his lips with understanding. He would always know.

What it would mean now was anyone's guess.

----


	9. survival of the fittest

**SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST  
April Fool's Day 2001**

"Does _anyone_ answer up in IT?"

Gracie was irate. It seemed to be one of those days, one of those phone-slamming, irascible days that found her standing at admit pouring over charts. The warmth of spring was beginning to rear its head, but you wouldn't know inside County. Or, at least with Gracie. She pushed up the sleeves of her navy long-sleeved tee, adjusted her scrub top and snatched up the phone receiver again, receiving a strange look from Yosh. Carter chose that moment to swing by and sing-song in her ear, echoing words she had once told him.

"You win more with honey than you do with vinegar, Gracie."

She gave him a sharp glare just as the other end of the line finally picked up, balancing the receiver between her ear and shoulder. "Yeah, this is Gracie down in the ER. One of our computers crashed, we need someone to fix it."

Carter watched her from across the desk as she listened with what seemed to be a growing impatience. Suddenly, she snapped, "If I'm _calling_ you because I was inputting my patient's _twenty-seven_ medications and the computer crashed, causing me to _lose_ what I've put in so far, _don't_ ask me if I've rebooted the computer! Or I might have to come up there and _boot_ you!"

There was something more to this, he knew. He examined her carefully, taking note of how she rolled her shoulders and neck with an uncomfortable grimace, how she'd been downing a liter of water for the past fifteen minutes, the way she looked pale and seemed to breathe a bit laboriously. He stepped forward, looking a bit like a dog following his nose.

"Just get down here!" Gracie barked, smashed the receiver down onto the base, and found herself standing side by side with Carter. "John, _what_?"

"Let me smell your breath."

"Excuse me?"

He touched her cheeks and forehead with the back of his hand, then reached down to prod her abdomen with a doctor's touch. "Does it hurt when I—"

"—_Ow_, goddamnit! What is your problem?"

Carter paused, catching a hint of a fruity scent on her breath. "Randi, what's open?"

"Exam Three."

Gracie batted his hands away, trying to return to her charts. "I don't know what you're going on about, John, but I'm fine."

"I think you're in DKA."

She laughed, gave him a disbelieving look, then spun on her heel and proceeded to catch her balance, stumbling into Carter's waiting grasp. "That doesn't mean anything," she insisted, even as he scooped her up into his arms.

"It means everything," Carter retorted, cradle-carrying her down the hall to the empty exam room.

"It means _nothing_; where is Dave?" Gracie hollered over his shoulder, "Dave!"

"Dave just got shot with ten of Haldol," Carter replied, resting her gently against the fresh sheets of the gurney. "And has rendered himself completely useless to you, Gracie, so I suggest you stay in bed and let me treat you."

It was only when, moments later, she found herself scrambling for a basin to vomit in that she settled back and let Carter and Yosh (after he was whistled into the room by John) fuss over her, although by then her body was starting to give in to the weariness that laying down seemed to induce. She was hooked up to an isotonic saline drip, labs drawn and an ECG performed before bags of insulin and potassium were hung with her infuser. She found herself drifting off to sleep in the fetal position under three layers of blankets, and laid that way for much of the day, completely ignorant to the busload of teenagers being brought into the ER and the subsequent shooting of an old lady that followed. When she finally began to stir awake, it was slowly and with no comprehension of where she was.

The only thing familiar was Malucci sitting next to her, face planted into the edge of her gurney, a string of drool escaping his mouth as he snoozed deeply.

She blinks, reaches up and gently touches the nasal cannula around her face, vaguely recalling Carter and his mention of her brother's run-in with Haldol. "Dave," Gracie whispered, her voice cracking. She reached to touch the top of his head with her IV-covered hand. She murmured louder. "Dave?"

He jerked awake very suddenly, as if his snooze had been illicit and he was afraid of being caught. He yawned, straightened and said, "Hey, sweetness, how ya feelin'? You missed a lot today."

She blinked. Interaction was arduous. "Weird," she whispered. "Why am I still here?"

"Carter's waiting on an ICU bed for you."

Her head fell back against the pillow, eyes fluttering shut, sounding distressed as she said, "ICU? What? I don't want—"

"Hey, relax," Malucci interrupted her, his own voice sounding sleepy. "Think of it as a little vacation."

Silence. "Did you really get stuck with Haldol?"

He simpered. He seemed to find it mildly amusing now. "Yeah."

"You're an idiot."

Later, after drifting back into sleep, she would wake up as she was being pushed into an ICU room. A light was being shined in her eyes, and Carter was on the other end, smiling down at her. It took the few moments of her being transferred from gurney to actual hospital bed for her confusion to dissipate. "Good morning, sunshine," Carter told her gently, chart in hand as he scribbled something on it.

"Morning?"

"Well, it's one a.m." An ICU nurse was bustling around the room, getting her situated as Carter perched himself on the edge of her bed. He tucked her three layers of blankets over her and said, "Don't worry, you can thank me later."

"You stayed?"

"I wanted to make sure you got up alright," Carter replied simply, shrugging slightly. He glanced her over, examining all of her tubes and leads, his eyes taking in the information her monitors were outputting. "How are you feeling?"

"Like somebody stuck a Foley in me."

He was chuckling before she even finished her sentence. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said, handing the chart back to the ICU nurse before she left the room. A beat skipped, he peered back down at Gracie. "Glad to see you alert."

"You won," she said simply, but it seemed to dance upon a lot more than that. Her gaze was unwavering on him. He reached out and gingerly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and, knowingly alone, pressed gentle kisses against her fluttering eyelids. "We've been here before," Gracie whispered.

"We'll be here again," he told her.

Her eyes opened. "We?"

Silence. He nodded. "We," he said roughly, palm cradling her cheek.

Spring was in the air.

----


	10. april showers

**APRIL SHOWERS  
April 2001**

She did not wake up in her own bed.

It was very different from her own, in fact. Larger, with much nicer sheets and overstuffed pillows. Linens that you could get lost in, soft like butter against her bare skin. They shifted against her as she stirred, remaining stomach-down in bed as her head turned to peer around the room, the first hints of morning light hitting her face. The edge of the mattress moved with the addition of new weight, the warm scent of a cigarette and coffee filled her nostrils and she found her eyelids fluttering shut as a kiss was pressed to her shoulder. "You smell like Starbucks," she told him sleepily.

"We have... far better coffee than they do."

Another kiss, this time pressed to the side of her neck, then the patch of skin behind her ear. "Who makes the coffee here? The man-servant?"

"Certainly not Gamma." He nestled his nose against hers and gently took her lips into a sweet kiss. In between, he asked, "You feeling okay?"

That was a standard question of his lately. Gracie was still recovering from her impromptu stint in ICU, and while for the most part she felt fine, she had been a little more tired than normal and subsequently took some time off work. It had been used to catch up on various necessities, necessities that now, as she returned his simple kisses, she felt a twinge of guilt for. She stuffed it down. "More than okay," she murmured against his lips. She neglected to mention the inner turmoil she still felt for going home with him the night before.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"'Cause I wouldn't want to wear you out." His hand trailed across the small of her back as he took another kiss. The slightest of smiles curved her lips as she broke away, tucked her head against the pillow and peered up at him.

"I don't think you need to worry about me, but maybe you should check and see if you woke your grandmother with how loud you were."

"It's a big house."

"You've got a big voice."

"She'll get over it," Carter chuckled, pressing one last kiss to her lips and moving to stand, nearly tripping over his feet a moment later. He caught himself, leaned over, and picked up a rose-colored satin bra off the floor. "I think that would be yours."

"I should hope so." She took the undergarment from his outreached hand and snuggled it against her, watching as he went to pick some clothes out of his closet. A beat skipped, and her ear caught the faintest sound of rainfall outside.

"It's raining?"

Carter called over his shoulder in reply. "Yeah," he said, "looks like we'll get a couple inches today."

Gracie sighed. She felt bad for Elizabeth already. "Rain on your wedding day," she mused softly. Carter emerged from the closet in a fresh pair of dress pants, buttoning up his cleanly pressed dress shirt.

"April showers bring May flowers, you know."

"Yeah, but on your _wedding_ day — it's just a bad omen."

"Well," Carter said, adjusting the collar as he finished the last buttons. "Maybe it'll stop before the ceremony." He draped a tie around his neck.

"Have you got a shift?"

"Yeah, I'll be off in time though," he wrinkled his nose as he completed the tie knot, adjusting the length so it sat properly. "Why don't you meet me at the hospital, and we'll go together?"

Gracie said nothing for a moment. The difficult way of responding was just that, difficult. "I don't know," her voice cracked, "they might try to call me in, I know some of the nurses were trying to get the day off for the wedding..."

"Make something up," Carter said simply, adjusting his sleeves as he leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead. "Or just screen your calls. You're not supposed to be back until Monday, anyway."

She chose the easy way. A nod, a whispered okay.

"I gotta go," he said after a moment of gathering his things and tugging on his coat. He returned to her side for one last kiss. "Stay as long as you want. Head down to the kitchen, they'll make you some breakfast."

It seemed to her that he truly had won. She returned his kiss, slow and heartfelt, pursed her lips with a smile when he pulled away, and despite the awkward uncertainty of a situation she hadn't expected them to be in again, she soldiered on. "You'll meet me later?" Carter asked at the doorway.

"I'll be there."

He smiled, and on a second thought, mentioned, "She likes you, you know. Gamma."

Gracie licked her lips. "I like her, too."

He left with that same smile, and she stayed behind, tracing her fingertips along the sheets and wondering just how the hell she had gotten here.

----


	11. fear of commitment

**FEAR OF COMMITMENT  
May 2001**

It was a very important day.

Gracie had taken off work early to make it down to the Near North Side, something she had only mentioned to Kerry Weaver. For nearly a year now, she had come to this place, day in and day out, and today had been the first time she had ever mentioned it to anyone inside her scope. It was a little weird to her. Weird, on a day that she should feel supremely proud.

She had been completing the last of her credits necessary for finishing a master's degree. Today, she had to pick up her diploma and make a two-thirty appointment to sit for her national certification exam as an acute care nurse practitioner. Gracie, who up until now had spent every working moment being content, was on the cusp of being able to practice an advanced form of care. With licensure, County would allocate a pay raise and permit her to practice in the ER. Weaver was thrilled, and wondered why she hadn't mentioned it until now.

Gracie couldn't give an answer. She didn't know.

She pondered the question as she sat in front of a computer in a stark-white room, clicking answers that she felt she knew even in her sleep. The best idea she could come up with was the fact that she had spent so many years relying on herself, as opposed to the support of others. She had put herself through nursing school. She had moved herself and her grandfather to a whole other country at the mere age of eighteen. It had either never occurred to her to allow the support of others, or she had simply neglected to mention anything out of fear of it not happening. It was a blurred line.

But it was happening. She finished her boards with a passing grade, and left that room with a smile on her face and a plethora of paperwork. She had done it. She had actually managed to finish graduate school and become licensed as an advanced practice nurse. It was something to celebrate, and as she headed down the heavy cement steps of the building, she debated picking up a pint of ice cream on her way home. That thought went out the window the moment she noticed the man standing at the foot of the stairs.

Carter stood there, his work clothes covered by a light spring jacket, holding a small bouquet of wildflowers. She slowed in her tracks, coming to rest two steps up from him, and he was giving her the slightest of smiles. Gracie was breathless.

"How did you know?"

"Kerry told me," he said simply, offering her the flowers. She took them with awed hands, holding them up to her nose to smell. "A nurse practitioner, huh?"

She winced. "Yeah, about that—"

He shook his head before she could continue. "No. Don't. I understand, really, I mean... it's part of your nature. I'm not sure I would have expected anything less of you." A pause. He studied her face carefully. "And it's not like I really had business knowing, right?"

She couldn't tear her eyes from his. She was expressionless, but those eyes suggested something more. "Maybe you did."

He expelled a breath and climbed one step closer to her. "I just wish that... you'd trust people a little more than yourself."

Gracie watched him unwaveringly. Without a word, without a thought, she leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly to his. His hands came to rest upon her waist, her fingertips gently brushing the nape of his neck, and he responded to her ably. And even with all this time spent so undefined, this felt right.

He broke apart only to grace her lips. He asked with barely a whisper, "You passed?"

She broke out into a smile, and he found himself right along with her.

----


	12. rampage

**RAMPAGE  
May 2001**

_Gracie Abrahams, MSN, RN, ACNP._

She ran her thumb across the words on her glossy new hospital ID. She seemed to have a habit of doing that today, during every little moment available to breathe — not that there was much time for that. A man appeared to be going on a shooting rampage across town that day, resulting in multiple traumas in the ER. Weaver seemed to be taking advantage of her newfound licensure, permitting Gracie to run minor as opposed to critical traumas under physician guidance.

Of course, today, no case was as it seemed.

In the initial intake of several victims from a foster care facility, she accepted a twelve-year-old named Martin who had been shot. Carter came into the trauma room for the initial assessment, which consisted mainly of treating the kid's GSW to the upper left arm. He'd only complained of pain and paresthesia, but positivity quickly deteriorated after the x-rays came back. She'd had to call Carter back, pointing out her concerns — a lesion by the shoulder, proximal and in front of the bone. Carter's consult with Greene seemed to affirm their suspicions: the possibility of soft tissue sarcoma. That was when she sent Carter in to talk to the kid, opting to hide in the drug lock-up and breathe in the midst of the chaos some guy had created. He found her sitting there on a pile of boxes.

Carter watched her for a moment, hands in the pockets of his white coat, eyeing her as she fiddled with her new ID. "Lydia and Chuny still giving you a hard time?"

Gracie glanced up. The nursing staff had been ribbing on her for most of the shift, poking fun at her new job title. She didn't mind. She knew the inner workings of her co-workers, the nurses especially. This was habit. She wrinkled her nose in response, smiled and shrugged. "Thanks for talking to Martin for me," she told him. "He alright?"

Carter shrugged. "We'll find out after the biopsy."

She nodded sagely, and all was quiet for a moment until she approached the one topic on her mind. "So when were you going to tell me?"

He hummed a questioning response.

"I heard a rumor," she told him.

"Oh yeah, a good one?"

"Dr. Rosen called from Northwestern."

She glanced at him; he paused. He seemed reluctant to approach this subject with her. "You took the message?" Carter asked.

A nod.

He shrugged, looking sheepish. "Just looking at options."

Gracie appeared nothing less than shocked. "You're leaving?"

"I still have to make up three months of my residency."

"Well, after that."

He shrugged. Neither said anything, until he inhaled sharply through his teeth, shook his head and said, "I'm not even being considered for chief resident." Gracie eyed him with concern, encouraging him to continue. "I have to write this... damn peer review for Chen. They're not even talking to me about an attending position." He raised his brows at her, and if she were in a clearer frame of mind she might have caught on to what this situation was reflecting. "Sometimes, you've got to read the writing on the wall."

"Well, have you talked to Weaver about an attending position?"

"No."

"Why not?"

She stood, and his focus on her was unwavering. "Because if she wanted me, she would ask me about it."

Silence. Gracie licked her lips. "Maybe she doesn't think you're interested."

What was she fighting for?

"Maybe I'm not," he whispered. He took a step, as if beginning to walk away, when all of a sudden something changed, a pensive question forming on his lips. He turned around and said, "What are we doing, Gracie?"

She wasn't sure she liked where this was going. "What do you mean?"

"You and I, we've..." Carter paused here, and if he wasn't able to look her in the eye before, he did now. "We've been having a... good time, right? I mean, these past few weeks. Like... _really_ good. You know what I'm saying?"

Her throat went dry. She nodded.

"And that's all we've been having. A good time." Carter sighed here, a man conflicted. "I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to say here is... why aren't we on the same page? About... us? I don't just mean about having a _good_ time together, because all I've been able to think about it how _you_ feel in my arms. How it feels when I kiss _your_ lips, and how _your_ nose scrunches up when you laugh. No one else, just you. I find myself looking forward to the end of the day. To when you'll lay in bed with me and just... breathe. Am I the only one who feels that way?"

The silence cut through her. She was barely aware when the word fell from her lips, nothing more than a whisper. "No," she said.

"No?" Carter took a step forward. "Gracie, I'm going to be _very_ honest here. I've had a thing for you for a long time. You know that. And I can't just be your friend. Not anymore. Not after what we've been through." His tone was crisp but gentle around the edges, as if he wanted to be firm but got lost along the way.

"You scare me."

He softened, feeling her hand slip down and rest loosely around his wrist, not so much grabbing at anything than searching for a close feeling. She wouldn't look him in the eye. "What do you mean?"

"With you, there's too much to lose."

Silence.

"I don't want to scare you," Carter murmured.

It was quiet for what seemed like forever, but then he rested his hands on her hips and spoke again. "You and I, we have a decision to make. Are we going to be serious, and only have this much to lose with each other? Or—"

"Or are we going to let this go?" Gracie completed his thought, the words tumbling quietly from her lips. He merely nodded.

It felt like eternity before she found herself able to look at him. She exhaled a shaky breath and took a very big leap. "Alright," she whispered. "You and me."

His smile was big and genuine. He pressed a kiss against her brow. "You and me," he echoed, his smile lingering against her skin. She tilted her head up and met his lips with her own, a sensual kiss that only reinforced their breathless feeling. It would take some time for them to cope with the surprise. The change.

She was learning how to embrace fear.

----


	13. four corners

We've moved on to Season 8. As always, thank you to my reviewers!

* * *

**FOUR CORNERS  
July 2001**

Two months.

It still felt new. Something shiny and unknown. Something to be revered and followed in awe, wonder at the idea that a beautiful thing had been affirmed. Much was to be said for where she stood now. A massive, lavish hallway, looking out onto a perfectly manicured lawn, blades of grass shadowed as night pulled over the city. The last of two hundred guests were filtering out from the estate, off to hop into their expensive cars and return home to their expensive lodgings. Gracie found herself in front of a window, fingertips gently brushing the cool glass.

What a funeral, she thought. What a send-off — a goodbye to a very pronounced man, grief transformed into a sumptuous affair. Condolences given in style. Gracie was having a difficult time getting used to this. The very notion of living well was foreign to her. She had no idea of the lifestyle Carter had grown up in, no possible way to relate. He was worth probable billions, and she had been raised with plastic rather than silver spoons. She loved him for his way of casting aside his family's notions, she resented him for his ability to believe that things came easy.

There wasn't much about this that was easy. Gracie had found herself playing the role of sympathetic girlfriend today... a term she was still wrapping her head around. She had donned a new, formal black dress — knee-length and more expensive in appearance than she was comfortable with. She had ridden with him and his mother Eleanor in a limousine-infested, police escorted motorcade; watched as he acted as pallbearer; sat supportively next to him during the service, sandwiched by his aloof mother. She had listened as his father gave the eulogy, partaking in uncomfortable small talk with Eleanor while Gamma gave her comforting smiles from across Carter's lap. Gamma was the only reason she was coping with this new scenery as well as she was. The woman had made a point to make her feel welcome, at the funeral of her own husband.

It wasn't so difficult to understand his love for Gamma.

Between the flute/harp duo at the gathering afterwards and the polite meeting of some of Chicago's most important players, Gracie hadn't found a moment to take a breath until now. Inhale, exhale. Her head lifted at the sound of gentle footsteps approaching her. The dim lighting cast shadows across his weary face, but she could still make out the curve of his jaw and a warmth in his eyes that he seemed to reserve only for her. She turned around and let him take her into his arms, rested her cheek against the lapels of his crisp black suit as his arms tightly gripped her waist. He exhaled a breath she was all too aware of.

"How are you holding up?" Gracie asked him softly.

"I am... comfortably numb."

He briskly rubbed her sides, she lifted her head in time for his lips to meet her forehead. His kiss lingered against her skin. "I don't think your mother likes me very much," she told him matter-of-factly.

Carter sighed. "She doesn't like what you are to me."

She peered up at him, eyes connecting with his own. The look he gave her warmed her down to her toes, and she examined him thoughtfully, licking her lips slowly and gently touching his cheek. "She doesn't know what she lost out on," she said softly, the sentiment making her tone seem rough.

His expression was unreadable, but when he leaned forward to gingerly take her kiss, she knew. She was beginning to wonder if she might always know. And if she always did. His lips were warm against her, and it was everything she could do to break away and lean her forehead against his chin. He kissed her hair, fingers gripping the material of her dress.

He was the most comprehensible thing within these walls.

----


	14. blood, sugar, sex, magic

**BLOOD, SUGAR, SEX, MAGIC  
August 2001**

"Shh."

A giggle. "They're going to hear us."

A groan, masculine in nature. Sharp intakes of breath, as her head tapped the wall behind her. "Mmm. Yeah, right there." A soft moan, colored with awareness of the necessity for quietude. "Harder." Labored breathing, as her hands gripped the material of his crisp, light blue dress shirt, made silent by his kiss and every push inward. The bare skin of her lower spine felt sweaty with every touch to the wall of Exam Seven. Completion came quickly, and it was all she could do to support her weight as they collapsed against one another.

Not a second later, a frantic, angry fist started banging on the door.

"Gracie!" It was Malucci. She peered at Carter, eyes wide with amusement as they fought to keep absolute silence. "I know you're in there! I need to talk to you!"

Her eyes shut, forehead knitted in frustration. Something in his tone suggested that something was very wrong. "I should go see what he wants," she whispered, but his grip on her was already loosening. He could tell, too.

She opened her eyes in time to return a feverish kiss, which broke abruptly as she scrambled to re-tie the drawstring of her scrub pants and straighten her scrub top over her torso. "I'm going to return the favor later," Carter whispered, a slight twinkle in his eye as he set about rightening his appearance.

"I'm counting on it." Gracie rolled her eyes as she smoothed down her hair and adjusted her hospital ID, but there was something in her return expression that made him growl, grab her by the waist and begin running kisses down her neck.

The pounding on the door got louder. "Gracie!"

A pause. She groaned, reluctantly pushing Carter away. "To be continued," she told him in no uncertain terms. The grin on his face remained in place as she snuck out the door into the hall, slamming head-on into Malucci's chest.

Her hand remained on the doorknob as she firmly shut the panel behind her. Malucci looked furious, his chiseled features strained with blind upset. _"What?"_ she hissed, immediately leading him away from Exam Seven, if only to spare both of them the uncomfortable acknowledgment of Carter's presence in the room. She didn't quite feel like dealing with his thoughts on his baby sister and her boyfriend having a quickie at work, even though she was certain he already knew what she'd been doing in that room.

"Weaver says I'm fired."

She ceased in her tracks, uncaring of how unprofessional it looked for two hospital employees to be ranting in the middle of a hallway. "She _what_?"

He was nodding, what seemed to be nonstop, his hand reaching to rub the back of his neck in fury as he spoke. "She caught me and some chick in the back of a rig, and all of a sudden she's saying I'm fired, and — Jesus Christ, I _can't_ be out of a job right now, we have the rent, and Joey..."

"Calm down. I'm sure she's just singling you out, you _know_ how Weaver is, she probably just needs to cool-off—" In her peripheral vision, she caught sight of Carter exiting the exam room, giving them a slightly sheepish smile as he went off down the hall to check on a patient. He was limping slightly, due to a piece of glass stuck in his foot that they had yet to get out. Abby caught him mid-way, and she found herself momentarily distracted as she watched the two of them talking animatedly. They disappeared around the corner.

"No, she really means it this time."

Gracie snapped her head back to look at her brother. She felt for him, she really did. Weaver had been coming down harder on him recently, after he and Chen got into trouble with a case involving a Marfan's patient. He had made a mistake, accidentally killing their patient, although both doctors were at fault. "Did you talk to Mark?"

"Dr. Greene tried to talk some sense into her," Malucci vented, running a hand through his hair, "the stupid bitch isn't having any of it... what am I going to do?"

She was really wondering why Abby had been chasing after Carter all day, more than any possible manifestation of her sympathy in this situation. It was a struggle to snap into focus, to lift a gesturing hand and say, "Okay, alright. Take it easy." Gracie paused, then gently touched his bicep. "C'mon, I have ten minutes left on my break. We'll go outside and talk this through."

The fact of the matter was, Malucci's personnel file was legendary, and Gracie was hesitant to jump to conclusions about him securing a job at another hospital. She wanted to be hopeful, to assume the best, but what could she say? He had a four year old son, and while medicine had been the only thing he was ever good at, they also had to look at the facts. Some people wouldn't understand.

She led him outside to the ambulance bay, receiving looks of daggers from Kerry Weaver in the admit area as they went.

Later, when her shift ended and she finally managed to get her brother home with a bottle of tequila to soothe his upset, she would learn that Carter had spent the afternoon helping Abby sneak a fish tank into Luka Kovac's apartment. He had very nearly been arrested, avoiding jail thanks to Kovac's good graces. But she couldn't help the thoughts that ran through her head as she settled into bed that night, alone. Fear embraced was fear that ran rampant.

It would be difficult to sleep that night.

----


	15. start all over again

**START ALL OVER AGAIN  
September 2001**

"Is that my Africa?"

Gracie spun around from her sitting place at admit, a grin formed upon her lips from ear to ear. Susan Lewis was standing there, looking tanner than her last memories of her recalled. A squeal escaped from her lips as she scrambled off of her chair to give Susan a hug. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes!"

She'd heard that Dr. Lewis was returning to work at County, but had been off work the day she had first stopped by the hospital. The gossip had been thrown at her by fellow nurses ever since. Susan, whom Gracie had known since 1993, when she had first started working at County, had been a dear friend through those first scary years as a nursing grad — and then, suddenly, she left to continue her residency in Phoenix. She had wanted to be closer to her sister's family. Gracie had received Christmas cards from her over the years, sometimes the occasional letter, but she hadn't been aware of the woman's return until she was physically in Chicago. Seeing her back was like a breath of fresh air.

"You look _amazing_," Susan remarked as the two pulled apart, typical pleasantries you expect to hear during the first meeting in a long time.

"I do not."

"You _absolutely_ do!" She touched Gracie's hair. "Are you using a new conditioner? I can never get my hair to look that soft." Susan set her chart down and her eyes suddenly widened. "What's this I hear about you and Carter?" Gracie's sheepish smile seemed to speak volumes, as Susan expressed awed revelation. A gasp. "No way! It's true, you guys are dating?"

"Guilty."

"I can't _believe_ it! What happened to the feud to end all feuds?"

Gracie licked her lips. She still wondered about that, herself. She merely shrugged and smiled. "Things change," she replied.

Susan was already moving on, her excited tone reflective of her happiness over the news of Gracie and Carter's relationship. "_And_ you're a nurse practitioner now? I'm so happy for you! I can't believe how much has changed around here."

"Tell me about it."

"I have to get back to a patient, but we're gonna get a coffee or something later, okay?" Susan reached out and rubbed her shoulder in a friendly way. "You can fill me in on what happened with you and John."

Gracie laughed and nodded, and the two parted ways, leaving Gracie to glance at her patient in Curtain Area One — a dirty looking doper, covered in bruises and track marks, one arm handcuffed to the gurney's side rail while the other was cut to shit from some fight out on the street. He was guarded watchfully by one of Chicago's finest. The thrill was more than absent in Gracie.

The guy was clearly high as a kite, and probably had Hepatitis C. He was agitated, and she watched him thrash against the gurney. He raised his arm, flipped his cop the bird and yelled, "FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKING PIG!" But by then she was already halfway to the side of the gurney, intent on hushing her patient.

The effect of her appearance was immediate. The doper calmly turned to her and said, "Hey baby, how's it going with you today?"

Gracie was speechless. The cop looked annoyed. "Pipe down," he told his offender sharply. Her doper hawked a loogie and spat on the officer.

The cop yelped with anger, and Gracie had to step in. "Alright, Mr. Tennyson, you're going to _have_ to settle down, or I'm giving you Haldol."

"It fucking hurts! And I'm tired of this pig!"

Gracie rolled her eyes and snapped on a pair of latex gloves. "If you hadn't of broken the law, he wouldn't have to be standing here," she told him pointedly, sitting down on a stool to begin cleaning his cut-up arm. The doper hissed and tried to rip his arm away.

"Hey, bitch! I told you, it fucking hurts, aren't you gonna gimme somethin'?"

"Respect the lady, man," the cop told him roughly.

"Fuck you!"

She was tired of this. Gracie stood once more and snapped off her gloves. She would get him a small dose of narcotic, if only to shut him up. "I'll be right back, Mr. Tennyson," she mumbled, annoyance hinting in her tone. She grabbed his chart and walked off in search of Carter.

She found him inside an exam room with... Gamma? Gracie pushed open the door, brow furrowed with concern. Carter glanced up at her arrival, and the look he gave her was branded with a certain sort of weariness — suggesting stress at the presence of his grandmother, restrained in an attempt to put on a brave face. She could see right through him. Gamma, on the other hand, lit up with delight. "Gracie," the elderly woman said, gesturing her closer. "There you are."

"Oh, Millicent, what happened? John?" Gracie shut the door behind her as she entered, took a few careful steps to the bed in which Gamma lay and gave the woman a kiss on the cheek in greeting. Gamma took Gracie's hand and enveloped it in both of hers, and Gracie sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Now, Gracie, I told you a million times not to call me that—"

She glanced at Carter. "Gamma fainted," he supplied helpfully.

"I did _not_ faint, I just got a little woozy, is all—"

Gracie pursed her lips and nodded. Now she understood. Her driver must have brought her in. It explained why Carter seemed upset; he had difficulty coping with the idea of his grandmother being in failing health. "I see," she echoed, glancing back at the tiny woman. She continued, "Gamma," saying the name pointedly and earning a beaming smile in the process, "I hope your grandson, here, isn't causing you too much trouble."

"He won't let me go home! He wants to run all these tests!"

"Gracie, can I talk to you?" Carter stood, clapped his clipboard against his hand and motioned for her to join him in the hall.

Before standing, Gracie leaned in with a twinkling eye and told Gamma, "I'll come by and save you later."

"I'm counting on it," Gamma replied with a smile.

Gracie met Carter right outside the door. "What do you need?" he sighed.

She quirked a brow and paused before responding. "Uh, I need you to sign off on this patient for me. My jailbird. I want to give him a little bit of morphine to shut him up, but I can't write for Schedule II narcotics, remember—"

He nodded, took her chart, and began scribbling on it. It only took a minute for her to ask the obvious question. "What's wrong?"

He didn't reply at first. He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

"It's nothing, really, I'm just tired—" a valid argument, given Carter's acceptance of the Chief Resident position after Chen's resignation, and his duty of babysitting the new group of med students, "—and Alger brings Gamma in, and she's stubborn as all hell, and I've got you humoring her."

Gracie paused. He was giving her an indescribable look. She suddenly found herself feeling defensive. "Well, I'm sorry that your grandmother seems okay," she told him with a hint of sarcasm. "Next time I'll be very serious."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

He gave her a pointed look, and neither said anything for a moment. "I just..." Carter trailed off. "I just want to make sure she's okay."

"She's fine, John, just look at her."

"Just let me do this."

Gracie expelled a breath, snatched her chart back from him, and walked away. His eyes bore into her back until she disappeared from sight.

----


	16. if i should fall from grace

**IF I SHOULD FALL FROM GRACE  
October 2001**

The grass was soft beneath her. It prickled her cheek, filled her nostrils with the fresh scent, cool and crisp against her skin. She laid her head back and peered up into the darkened, star-filled night sky. He paced back and forth nearby, hands shoved in his coat pockets, shoes crunching against the cement pathway. She listened to his footsteps, sighed, and tucked her coat tighter around her frame.

"Just what is she thinking?"

She strained her head to look in his direction. "You know how she is, John."

"You'd think with her age she'd have a little common sense."

"Who else _does_?"

He stopped in his tracks, eyeing her with caution. They had been clashing on this subject for some time now. He knew that she understood well what he was dealing with — she had spent years caring for Oupa, who was headstrong in his own right — but it still didn't change the fact that it was stressful. Gamma had fainted at home that morning, and a series of tests had revealed Shy-Drager Syndrome. She'd demanded to go home against medical advice, only for Carter to learn hours later that she had been up and driving around when she shouldn't be. So there they were, waiting at the estate for the unmistakable sight of Gamma's headlights pulling up in the driveway. It was a tenuous wait.

Carter inhaled deeply and asked, "What's wrong with us?"

Gracie sat up on her elbows and looked at him. Something indescribable churned in her gut. She knew. She had a theory that they both did. The honeymoon period of beginning months was long gone, and what remained was the feeling she believed she would always possess. Because what else do you feel when you come into contact with the notion that you've finally found what you're looking for?

She said softly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

That was the last straw. Carter moved towards her in three long bounds, his shoes crunching against the lawn as he walked. The emotion on his face came very close to disturbing her. "Stand up," he demanded.

"What? No!"

"Stand up, Gracie."

"Why?"

"Because I have had _enough_ of this!"

The words flew out of his mouth in a near-yell, and Gracie was shocked into unmoving silence. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him even if she tried. Carter exhaled a frustrated breath, ran a hand through his hair, turned around in an idle circle, face tilted to the sky — as if pondering his thoughts, his life. "We argue," he finally said quietly, and she had to strain to hear him. "We fight. That's all we've been doing lately."

"People do that, John."

"Not us," Carter retorted before the words even finished coming out of her mouth. There was that angry tone again. "Not us," he repeated firmly. "No, we were good. And then _you_ started shying away."

All the air deflated out of her lungs. She couldn't speak.

"What changed, Gracie?" Carter challenged.

"Nothing," she whispered.

"That's the problem."

Silence. Carter exhaled, and the breath came out in the form of a shaky laugh. He threw his hand up in the air, as if defeated. "I'm in love with you," Carter said for the first time, and she had never heard him sound so certain.

And there was her downfall.

Tears brimmed in the corners of her eyes. He watched her for one unwavering moment, then rubbed his face in exasperation. She found herself standing, feet unsure of the ground. Her head was spinning.

"Don't walk away from this, Gracie. Not again."

The fact that he knew her that well had her seething. She stormed right to him, and hissed, "Don't you _dare_ presume what I am feeling."

"You're my _girlfriend_, Gracie. There's no presumption involved."

"You don't know a damn thing."

She was trepidatious. That much was evident, right down to her very bones — a wave of disconcertion drifted across her features, she turned around, tucking her coat around her frame again and making to walk away. Then she heard him speak behind her, accusatory words that froze her.

"So you're telling me I'm wrong?" Carter accused, "That your parents _didn't_ damage you? Daddy left you and you don't feel an inch of abandonment, is that right?"

Gracie turned to face him, fury in her eyes. "That is _none_ of your business."

"They _ruined_ you, Gracie! You're afraid because of them!"

"And just what am I afraid of?" Gracie snapped.

Carter stared at her for a long moment, then simply, with much more kindness in his voice than a moment ago, he said, "You're afraid of the truth. You're afraid of needing me, because you fear waking up one day and not finding me there." He paused. "You're afraid, because you're in love with me, too."

She had no voice. A single tear streaked down her cheek. Without a word, she turned around and began walking away. "Gracie..." Carter called after her, sounding a little more than disappointed, hinting of failure.

Her final response to him flew out of her mouth before she was even aware of it. "You said you wanted to get to know me," she shouted over her shoulder. "I never said you'd like the person you found."

Two glowing headlights pulled into the massive driveway, visible from her peripheral vision, but Gracie ignored them. She stormed right off the property, down the darkened street as upset swirled around in her head. She had no idea how long she walked. There was no logic here. Only emotion.

At one in the morning, she hailed a cab back to her shared apartment.

----


	17. partly cloudy, chance of rain

**PARTLY CLOUDY, CHANCE OF RAIN  
November 2001**

"It's really coming down out there."

She barely heard her brother over the noise in her head. She tore her eyes away from the window, where her fingertips brushed the cold glass, and narrowed her gaze — it took a minute for him to come into focus. He looked just like their father in this light. It was a little disconcerting. She blinked. "What?"

Malucci gave her a knowing look. He repeated himself. "I said, it's really coming down out there. Shouldn't you be leaving for work?"

Gracie turned her head to look back out the window. "You can't be late until you show up," she murmured matter-of-factly. But he heard her.

"Have you talked to Carter at all?"

This had been the norm for the past week. Gracie hiding in her room, crying, ignoring phone calls. Getting nurses to cover her shifts, much to the displeasure of Weaver. Malucci had watched her with cautious overprotection, the air of a big brother uncomfortable with seeing his sister upset but too uncertain of the consequences meddling would bring. Gracie shook her head. She had been trying to think of a game plan. Trying to plot decisively, to figure out where to go from here. Trying to figure out how to properly cope with the rest of her life.

It was easier said than done.

"Maybe you should," Malucci remarked.

Gracie exhaled a breath. "He's, um, he's working today."

"And you're going to talk to him?"

"In theory."

"Gracie, you _need_ to."

She knew that tone. Knew what he was inferring. That he was right. He usually was, even if she didn't want to admit it. She thought of a time nearly two years ago, when he'd caught wind of some patients receiving drugs at an illegal pharmacy. He had gone to investigate; she had tagged along to assist — fat lot of good it did, since he'd ended up with a black eye. But she had come upon a certain respect for him during that incident. No matter what issues were in their past, Gracie was discovering now that she would always respect his opinion.

"I know," she whispered.

Malucci sighed, scratched his head absently, and made to leave the room. He said, "You know where I stand on this. Just make sure you talk to him. And be careful out there, this storm's supposed to be insane."

She departed not long after, into a deluge of water that had her soaked to the bone before she even got to County. Her clothes dripped on the floor just inside the ambulance bay doors, and she paused there for a moment, shivering and in awe at the sudden change to warmth. Frank eyed her from the admit desk.

"You look like a drowned rat."

Gracie blinked. "Thanks, Frank," she retorted sarcastically, stepping closer to the counter. Susan Lewis chose that moment to pass by, tagged after by Michael Gallant, a new med student. Susan chortled loudly at the sight of her.

"You're late," Susan sing-songed, scribbling something on the big clear board.

Gracie sniffled, wiping wetness from her hair and face. "I know," she replied, an obvious lack of caring in her voice. "Do me a favor and clock in for me, I've got to find something dry to wear—"

"You got it."

She tracked wet footprints down the hall as she went in search of a pair of scrubs. She found a standard-issued pair in her size, that light blue shade all the nurses were wearing now, and went to an empty exam room to change. She set herself up behind a privacy screen, listening to the falling rain outside as she tugged off her coat and peeled her wet t-shirt away from her body. It was then that she faltered, dropping the articles of clothing to the ground as painful thoughts distracted her. Her lower lip trembled, and she stood there in wet pants with a naked torso, a damp black bra covering her. She began to cry.

This wasn't unusual. Not lately. Trying to make sense of one's feelings is a difficult task, and Gracie found herself crying at inopportune times because of it.

She was so distracted with trying to soothe her upset that she barely registered the sound of the door opening to the room. Familiar footsteps filled her ears. And then, a voice: "Gracie?"

She froze. It took a second for her to lift her head.

Carter circled the privacy screen, hands stuffed into the pockets of his lab coat. He noticed her tears, and his face fell. He took a step forward, as if to console her, but stopped himself, as if he were uncertain that she really wanted his comfort. He cleared his throat softly. "Look, I'm sorry," he said uncertainly.

She was shaking her head before he even finished. "No, _I'm_ sorry," Gracie replied, reaching up to smudge at the corners of her eyes, completely uncaring of the fact that she stood half-naked in front of him. Upset was obvious in her voice.

He sank onto a nearby stool and said nothing. Looking for something to steady her hands, she kicked off her soaked shoes and wiggled her way out of her pants, standing there in wet undergarments as she pulled on a dry pair of scrub pants. She paused as she tied the drawstring. "It's, um..." Gracie hesitated, and glanced at him. "It's difficult," she said. "Being with someone who can see through me so clearly."

Carter straightened a bit — he'd had some back trouble lately. For a moment, he had no response. But then he reached for her, pulled her closer, and she stood in front of him with vacillation. He licked his lips and glanced up at her as her hand lay uncertainly in his. "Maybe you should stop trying to be a haze," he told her, his tone of voice rough with disuse. The silence felt louder than anything.

He reached up, wiped her tears away, and pressed a lingering kiss to her abdomen. And it was in that moment she knew. The words escaped her lips in a single breath.

"I love you," she said.

He peered up at her, and she exhaled shakily. His eyes were soft. He laced his fingers through her own, squeezed them tight and told her, "Then I'm not going anywhere."

She leaned in for a scintillating kiss, his hands on her waist, his thumb gently massaging her hipbone as their lips met. This was something she couldn't escape. And she was tired of trying to. He had her tied down in the worst way, and it was then she knew for certain that whenever he called... she would come running. It was that simple.

Later, after she'd finished changing into her scrubs and found time to discharge a few patients, after well wishes on Dr. Finch's last day, she caught wind of Alger bringing Gamma in by town car. She was bleeding and in severe pain; she had broken her hip. She was by Carter's side every step of the way as he handled his grandmother's care. And when the realization came that Gamma had been the offending driver in a hit and run, and that the young female victim was crashing in the next room, she was right there intubating the woman.

At some point, it stopped raining. But Gracie wasn't certain of when.

----


	18. i'll be home for christmas

**I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS  
December 2001**

_**thirteenth**_

"I'm starving, where are your manners?"

Carter seemed amused. "You're right, where _are_ my manners?"

He followed her down the steps of the El platform, chuckling to himself as he watched her walk two paces ahead of him, feigning ignorance of him. She wore a thick brown coat and a brightly colored scarf that stood out against the backdrop of icy sidewalks and lightly falling snow. "Why I keep you around, I don't know."

"I'm sorry," Gracie called over her shoulder, "Do I know you? The hunger has made me amnesiac."

He chuckled even louder, and jogged to catch up at her side. He leaned close to her ear and motioned to a vehicle by the side of the road. "Roach coach?"

"Actually, now that I think about it, you _are_ starting to look familiar..."

"I'll spring for the coffee too."

Gracie chortled loudly. "Hey there, big spender!"

She settled into preparing him a cup of coffee, just as Carter's cell phone rang. She listened absently to his greeting as she grabbed herself a banana.

"Hey, how was your flight?"

She glanced over her shoulder. He looked happy. "Yeah, no, she was walking around a little bit yesterday," he told the caller. "I'm meeting her for lunch, you wanna hook up there?"

Gracie glanced back at their choices. "Oh, you're getting me a yogurt too."

"What's that?" She heard him say, but it obviously wasn't directed at her. He paused a second, calling a bit more quietly in her direction, "Grab me a bagel." That one was clearly directed at her. "Really?

She shook her head with a half-smile, picking up a bagel and handing it to him before pouring herself a cup of hot water and grabbing a tea bag. Carter suddenly sounded excited. "No, that's great! Yeah, okay, well, I'll see you there."

He hung up, and came to her side. The look on his face was that of amazement. He said in a taken aback tone, "They're staying for the holidays."

Gracie paused, eyes wide. "Your parents?"

"First time in nine years."

_**nineteenth**_

The ER was officially decorated for the holidays; brightly colored Christmas lights lining the halls and metallic garland everywhere. Gracie felt like she was walking through a shopping mall. Did the season ever really leave? She was sucking on a candy cane as she ambled past admit, the piece of confectionary dangling freely from between her lips as she pushed open the door to the lounge.

Carter stood there, in front of his locker. He glanced over his shoulder at her arrival, managed a weak smile, then returned to going through his things.

She plucked the candy cane out of her mouth, held it between thumb and forefinger as she leaned up on her toes to greet him with a kiss. He returned it, but without much enthusiasm. She replaced the candy in her mouth and pulled a small vinyl bag out of her own locker — it was time to check her blood sugar. She set herself up at the table and asked, "What's wrong?"

He didn't say anything for a moment. She checked the basal and bolus dosages on her insulin pump and proceeded to prick her finger with a lancet, glancing over her shoulder at him as she fed the strip into a blood glucose monitor. She raised an eyebrow. "John?" she repeated, a little more concerned.

"I met my father for lunch today."

Gracie blinked. "Yeah, I know." She said, confused. He had gone to meet him at Doc Magoo's. She'd wanted to come with, but had gotten caught up in caring for a young cystic fibrosis patient. Give him my best, she had told him.

Carter exhaled. "My mom's in Costa Rica... she's not coming."

"At all?"

He shook his head. "They're getting a divorce," he said softly.

Her Accucheck beeped with the reading, but she didn't notice it. Her attention was focused completely on him. Her mouth was slightly agape. "Oh, John..." Gracie breathed, uncertain of what to say. "I'm so sorry."

"Thirty years, and they decide to split up now."

"Did he tell you today?"

A nod.

"Was it at least amicable?"

He shrugged. She finally checked her reading, and satisfied, she began to put her supplies away in her locker. "My father petitioned for it. Not her."

She gingerly held the sticky candy cane in her fingertips, gently shutting the metal door with one hand. She leaned against the storage unit, facing him. "Well..." she began slowly. "Maybe that's a good thing."

He sighed and shook his head. "I just... I don't know, it hasn't sunk in yet."

"Want a candy cane?" Gracie asked suddenly.

"What?"

She pulled a wrapped one out of her scrub pocket, holding it out to him. He stared at her with raised eyebrows, and couldn't help but laugh. "Gracie's orders."

An unblinking moment passed. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, absently taking the wrapped candy cane from her hand as he seduced her lips with his own. "You taste like peppermint," he murmured between pecks to her mouth.

The simple fact that she understood seemed to be enough for now.

_**twenty-fifth**_

It was twelve past midnight on Christmas Day by the time he checked his voicemail. She lay in bed beneath a warm and fluffy down comforter, cringing at the sound of Malucci snoring away in the next room, and watched as he moved about in what little glow the streetlight sent through the window. Her eyes fell to the nightstand beside her bed, where his gift for her sat — a light-up snowglobe, elaborate and handmade. A tiny African landscape lay inside the hand-blown glass dome, miniature giraffes and zebras backlit by a warm luminescence.

Lovely, she had said. Beautiful, he had responded. Like you.

He hung up his cell phone and scrambled back into bed, burrowing under the warm covers and snuggling up next to her amidst her giggles. "It's freezing!"

"_You're_ freezing," Gracie retorted. "Your hands are giving me frostbite."

"I'm so sorry," Carter said slyly, snaking his fingertips under the hem of her shirt and placing his hands against the bare skin of her back. "Is this better?"

Gracie shrieked. Carter roared with laughter, and she playfully shoved his shoulder, attempting to push him out of bed. "Stop," Carter laughed, curling closer to her even amidst her shoving. "I'm sorry."

"You should be."

She pressed a kiss to his shoulder and ran a hand down his side, gently brushing her fingertips against his jagged scar. "Who called?"

"Benton. I guess tonight was his last shift."

"I can't believe he's leaving," Gracie murmured, leaning her head against his chest.

"I can't believe you knew before I did."

"I wasn't kidding when I said I knew people."

"Are you gonna tell me you have a secret connection to the mob now?"

She peered up at him. His grin was visible even in the dim light. "Maybe."

Her thoughts drifted as he kissed her forehead. They would be woken early for presents, she knew, thanks to young Joey and his excitement. It would be coffee, milk, and Gracie's homemade donuts for breakfast while she listened awkwardly to her brother get to know Carter in a personal rather than professional setting. Then the two of them would visit Gamma at the convalescent hospital. She thought of the red silk pajamas she had given Gamma as an early Christmas gift, and something occurred to her — she glanced up at him, eyebrows raised in earnest. "You want to open your present?"

"Yeah."

She moved out of the way so he could pick the small, metallic silver box off of the nightstand. It was wrapped in a red ribbon. He gave her a sarcastic look as he untied the bow. "Copycat," he pointed out.

"Red was all we had."

"Uh-huh."

He lifted the lid, and suddenly seemed breathless.

Sitting on top of a bed of cotton, lay a bracelet, skillfully made out of brown leather cord and tiny green wooden beads. It was obviously old, and beautiful in its antiquity. He looked at her quizzically, and she said gently from where her head lay against the pillow, "It was my mother's."

"Gracie, I can't accept this."

"Please."

"You should keep it."

She licked her lips, expelled a breath and said, "I want _you_ to have it."

He stared at her for the longest time. Even when she reached out, lifted the bracelet out of the tiny box and slipped it onto his wrist, he said nothing. She adjusted the leather cord and said softly, "Perfect."

Then he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said sincerely, "You know, you're about the only thing going right in my life."

----


	19. beyond repair

**BEYOND REPAIR  
January 2002**

He had started his morning out by bringing Gamma home from the convalescent hospital. That hadn't gone so well, he'd said — his mother had shown up unannounced. Gamma disliked Eleanor, but the aloof woman would be staying with them at the house. He had gone from there to meet up with Chen at a local shopping mall, for a discussion Gracie still hadn't heard about. The clock struck noon before he finally showed up at the hospital, with a lunch of Chinese take-out to share. She found herself sitting at the table in the lounge with him, eating with chopsticks and talking about Aspen. He was trying to convince her to go with him, but she was having a hard time reconciling the idea of leaving one snowy place for another, especially when it was, in her brother's words, "shit-ass cold outside" and the thermostat in the lounge read fifty-six.

She argued playfully with him over the topic until Susan came and pulled her out to take over a case. A fifteen year old girl with gallstones. Gracie was on her feet the rest of the day, a thick cardigan worn over her shoulders as she moved about in pale blue scrubs. The snow outside did not let up over the course of the afternoon, even as Gracie discharged three patients and sent her fifteen year old up to surgery. She was just returning from passing her off to Romano when Abby came hurrying towards her. "I need to talk to you," Abby hissed.

Confusion was heavy on her features as Abby pulled her away from admit, down near the trauma rooms. Something was wrong. "Sobricki's back," Abby finally told her when the location was satisfactory. Gracie blinked.

Then it dawned on her.

"_Paul_ Sobricki?" Gracie repeated, "The guy who stabbed John?"

"The schizophrenic, yeah."

"What the hell is he doing here?"

Abby sighed. "He slipped or something, Susan is treating him. She wants a head CT, I told her we should ship him off to Mercy before Carter sees."

"John doesn't know yet?" Gracie was slightly speechless. She glanced over both shoulders, as if she feared that Carter was eavesdropping nearby.

"I put him in restraints and told them to get him off the board."

"Where is he?"

"Curtain Three, but they're moving him to sutures."

The same room where tragedy had struck. Gracie's head was spinning. She heard herself thank Abby and walk away, but all she could think about was keeping Carter out of the way. She'd succeeded pretty well until he caught up with her outside the utility room. He carried two charts with him. "Hey, babe," Carter greeted her breathlessly, handing her one of the charts. "When you get a chance, let's send a thick-and-thin smear and a culture on your guy in Curtain Three."

Gracie glanced at the chart. She had passed two of her patients off to him for consult. "Yeah, okay," she replied, flipping through the chart to read his notes.

"Oh," he handed her a second chart, saying, "and your diarrhea patient was he-negative, just a little PO-challenged, so I sent him home with some imodium."

She spotted him over his shoulder before he did.

Gracie felt a panic rise up in her throat. Sobricki was being wheeled back down to the ER by transport. Carter was about to turn around and walk away, and she struggled to come up with a distraction to lure him away. "Uh..." Gracie stammered, "John, I have a five year old with abdominal pain and I'm worried about intussusception."

She was amazed at how quickly she pulled that out. Carter stopped in his tracks, his attention back on her. His brows furrowed. "Is there any blood in the stool?"

"Um, no, but he had a palpable mass."

Voices drifted over his shoulder.

_"There he is."_

_"Hey, sweetheart!"_

_"There's Daddy."_

Carter froze. Gracie's heart sank. Realization was dawning on his face, slowly but surely. Neither of them moved.

_"Hey, hi, I'm okay. I'm okay. Daddy slipped, and he fell, and he hit his head — but I'm okay —"_

_"They put you in restraints."_

_"Yeah, it's just a precaution. They're a little paranoid."_

He turned around slowly, almost fearfully. Gracie lifted a hand to her lips, silent, afraid to speak. Sobricki noticed him right away.

"Oh, it's you."

He seemed truly remorseful. "I'm sorry," Sobricki shook his head.

Carter glanced over his shoulder at Gracie. "What's he doing here?"

Sobricki's wife, standing by her husband's gurney holding their young daughter, spoke up before Gracie could say anything. "He slipped and fell," she said softly, "outside his office building."

"His office building?" Carter repeated.

"He's on conditional release."

For a moment, Carter said nothing. "You're out?"

"I'm better," Sobricki told him earnestly. "I'm sorry... that wasn't me who did that to you, to your friend, you know that, right?"

Carter was silent.

"You're a doctor," Sobricki went on, "you know it's a disease... I'm being treated. I'm okay now."

Gracie sucked in her bottom lip, gut churning, as she watched the exchange taking place before her. She knew the look on Carter's face. Could tell what was going through his head — the horror, the flashbacks. How he was trying so hard to keep it together. How he was furious at the idea this man had been released.

Finally, Carter said in a deadly tone, "Great. I'm glad you're okay."

He turned around and stormed away, and Gracie watched him nearly run into someone in the hall as he forced his way into the men's restroom.

Sobricki would later be discharged. Gracie would hear all about the note that his wife had asked Abby to give to Carter. She would ask him repeatedly if he was alright, praying he was telling the truth with every insistence. He would head home after his half-shift, to Gamma and Eleanor and the private duty nurse, and Gracie would wait by the phone for his call that night. It didn't come until she had been passed out in bed for two hours.

The ringtone woke her up from a dead sleep, and it was obvious by how she answered the phone. "John?" she nearly whispered, sounding confused.

He spoke immediately, without greeting.

_"They release Lucy's killer, my mother shows up out of nowhere, tries to intervene in my grandmother's health care arrangements..."_ He sounded as if he'd been crying. _"And I can't help but wonder where the hell she was."_

She nuzzled her head against the pillow, eyes closed, phone to her ear. She murmured questioningly, "Eleanor?"

_"Am I a selfish person for wanting her to have been here?"_

She knew what he meant. Knew that Eleanor not showing up in Chicago after her son was stabbed had resulted in a heartbroken little boy, even if it had taken two years to come to a head. She sighed. "No, John."

_"Stay on the phone with me. I want to listen to you as I fall asleep."_

And so she did, each listening to the other's simple breaths.

She hoped it was enough.

----


	20. a simple twist of fate

**A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE  
March 2002**

Gracie blinked. This was not how she expected to start her shift.

She folded her arms, took a step back and witnessed Frank vomiting violently into a trash can by admit. "Please tell me that's not from the bagels."

A pharmaceutical company had set up a complimentary breakfast spread for the staff that morning. Bagels and cream cheese that Weaver had insisted no one should eat, for the act of doing so was caving into bureaucracy. But one by one, Gracie's co-workers were dropping like flies. Nurses leaving in the middle of their shift, requiring reinforcements to be called in from registry — then doctors. Gracie, who had been upstairs with Carter and his mother, had been called down to cover.

"It ain't from the cafeteria food—" Frank's words were interrupted by another violent purging.

"Take some damn compazine."

"I gotta go home—"

"You sure Weaver's gonna let you do that?"

"Weaver just left," Frank sat back on his knees, looking pallid and sweaty.

Gracie erupted with laughter at the thought of Kerry Weaver abandoning her morals for a bagel and cream cheese. She turned on one heel and began to walk away. "Then go home, Frank," she called over her shoulder. The sound of his continued vomiting followed her down the hall.

She caught up with Susan by Trauma One. "Oh," Dr. Lewis breathed, looking harried, "thank God you're here."

"You can thank me later."

"I'll buy you a pint."

Gracie gripped the stethoscope around her neck by both ends. "How's Ella?"Mark and Elizabeth's daughter, Ella, had been laid up in the PICU after suffering an amphetamine overdose, thanks to Mark's oldest, Rachel. Most of the staff close to the two doctors had been following the infant's progress. "Doing better," Susan replied. "Off the vent."

"Thank God for small favors," Gracie sighed.

"_Tell_ me about it," Susan shook her head and handed her a chart. "Acute MI in five."

"Yes, mistress."

Some time later, Gracie was chatting with her acute MI patient. She was halfway through her dose of thrombolytics and her presenting symptoms — shortness of breath, profuse sweating and vomiting — had completely resolved along with her ST elevation. Things were looking good.

That was when Ed from accounting poked his head into the room. "Gracie?"

She glanced over her shoulder at the man who was covering the desk. She raised her brows at him. "Dr. Carter on line two for you," he said.

"Thanks."

Ed left, and Gracie excused herself quietly, rising from her leather-capped stool and picking up the receiver from a nearby wall phone. She pressed a button and answered quietly, "Hello, you."

_"Remind me why I did this."_

Carter sounded weary. Her eyes fell to her patient and her husband of sixty-one years sitting by her side. The man referred to his wife as his 'lovely bride,' and they had held hands for most of her stay. He was calm and supportive, but underneath you could tell he was rattled by the fact that his wife was having a heart attack. Gracie toyed with the phone cord as she replied verbatim, "Because Eleanor asked for your help."

_"Which is funny, seeing as she took off running when this kid started spewing hemoptysis."_

"It must be painful for her, John."

_"She doesn't have the right to feel pain. She abandoned Bobby in the midst of everything, now an orphan who doesn't have anyone else?"_

Gracie sighed. Carter's mother being in town all this time had been stressful, to say the least. She had taken a shine to a young orphan with cancer, and Gracie had referred to it as Eleanor's 'pet project,' only a mild amount of sarcasm involved. She had never deigned to feel sympathy for the woman until now. Mostly because his mother hadn't shown any signs of humanity up until recently. "Maybe she'll come back," she sighed.

_"Who knows. Want some lunch?"_

"Can't, we're completely swamped down here—"

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of her patient stopping mid-sentence, in the middle of a conversation with her husband about one of their grandchildren. "Oh," the woman gasped, going into seizure-like activity.

Gracie was stunned into immobility for what seemed like an eon, even though it was really only a second. "John, I have to go," she stated absently into the phone, hanging the receiver up firmly and rushing to the woman's side. "Cathy?"

The monitor showed v-fib, a lethal heart rhythm where the heart quivered like jello without pumping any blood. Before Gracie could fully think the situation through, her arm shot out and socked the elderly woman mid-chest. In a simultaneous motion, she reached out and hit the code button.

Her husband was outraged. "What the _hell_ are you doing?"

"Saving her life."

"You _hit_ her!"

By the time she opened the defibrillator pads, some sinus beats were already appearing on the monitor. Abby and Kovac came running into the room just in time to see Gracie's patient miraculously wake up.

"What's going on?" Kovac demanded.

"I did the precordial thump."

"You _what_?"

"What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?"

The husband kept insisting that Gracie had hit his wife, while Kovac, after regaining his composure, did his best to convince the man that she hadn't hit his wife with malicious intentions. "I've never seen the precordial thump work before," Abby whispered to Gracie over the confused woman, sounding a bit amazed.

Gracie widened her eyes in agreement, the slightest of curves to her lips as she scribbled down orders for more tests, expelling a rattled breath she hadn't been aware of holding until now. "What happened?" Cathy asked.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Kendrick," Abby told her. "You're going to be just fine."

----


	21. it's all in your head

One pint of Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie, three hours of the ER finale and infinite amounts of crying later, here is the next chapter. Thank you to my readers.  


* * *

**IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD  
April 2002**

The weather was clear and sunny; optimum for the ebullient screams of a children's birthday party. The lightest of breezes necessitated merely a loose sweater, and it showed no sign of stopping little Joey and several of his closest friends as they attacked a playground at a local park. Gracie folded her arms, her feet crunching against the soft green grass as she took a couple of steps forward, laughing with mild concern at the sight of her nephew as he swung upside down in a tire swing. She glanced over her shoulder toward a nearby picnic table, where Fiona, Malucci's ex-girlfriend and baby mama, was setting up platters of veggies and dip. She didn't look the least bit concerned. Gracie shook her head and smiled.

Close by, parents of the other children chatted, while a few yards away, Carter supervised Malucci's use of the barbecue. Gracie grinned as Carter caught sight of her gaze, pointed at her brother and yelled, "I don't think this guy knows what he's doing!"

Malucci shoved an elbow into his side and pointed a set of barbecue tongs at him. "You're talking to the grill _master_ here, okay?"

The two quarreled jokingly, and Gracie found herself rolling her eyes and looking away, back toward the playground. It was Joey's fifth birthday, and it was sort of bittersweet to watch. Especially when she found herself reflecting on the fact that she hadn't even known about his existence for the first two years of his life. So much had changed. She had spent ten years completely ignorant of her brother's comings and goings, not having the slightest clue of his location or even his well-being, and here she was — at his son's birthday party. Bittersweet was the only word.

"Gracie!"

Her head turned to catch sight of Fiona, just in time to catch a set of car keys thrown at her. She gave the young woman a quizzical look. "I left the cake in my car, can you go get it?" Fiona explained with a questioning tone.

Gracie smiled, nodded, and set off toward the parking lot. Carter came jogging after her a few moments later, his arm snaking around her waist as he pulled her to his side. "You know," he began, rather nonchalantly, "this sweatshirt is all that's keeping me away from you."

"Is that a fact?"

"You betcha."

He was grinning before the words even ceased on his lips. She smiled slightly, but the thought on her mind was difficult to ignore. She found herself considering her words carefully as they moved from grass to pavement. "John," Gracie began thoughtfully, "why are you a doctor?"

He seemed utterly baffled by her question. He laughed, shrugged, and admitted honestly, "I don't know anymore."

"You thought you knew?"

"Once. For a while." Carter pursed his lips, shook his head and tried to demonstrate his point with his hand. "You know, these things, they're all feelings. It's all in your head."

Gracie licked her lips. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Carter asked as they crossed onto the asphalt of the parking lot, simultaneously coaxing and sympathetic.

She actually laughed, and the tone was reflective of her bittersweet feelings. She paused, two feet away from an empty soda bottle someone had run over with their car, shook her head, peered up at the sunshine and said, "Oh, I just... Dave told me that he's decided to take a job as a paramedic. Instead of a doctor. And I just got to thinking, you know?"

His gaze was steady on her. "Too much thinking is bad for you."

"I know."

It was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Why are you a nurse?"

Gracie exhaled a shuddering breath.

"Because I don't know how to be anything else," she said.

He reached out, pulled her in close, her chin pressing against his shoulder as he kissed the top of her head. "The grass is greener on every side," he murmured. "The best we can do is go with our gut."

"And what does my gut say, John?"

She peered up at him, close enough to catch the slightest scent of soap, and he stared right back. When he spoke, his voice cracked. "That you want to do what you couldn't do for your mom."

It's a funny thing, emotion — it sometimes comes when it is least expected. Her chin trembled, her chest felt heavy and any words that came out were unintelligible. No tears were to be found, but her loss was palpable. He drew her back in again, hugged her tight. They were in the same boat. If change had done anything at all, it had made that very clear. "Some people make their choices out of necessity," Carter whispered in her ear. "Others make it out of desire. You were not my necessity."

She sniffled and gazed up at him. "Don't make this about you."

"I was just hoping it would make you feel better."

Gracie laughed, and he pressed his forehead against hers. His palm flattened gently against the nape of her neck, and she closed her eyes. She whispered, "I love you."

And he said, "That's the only thing I'm certain of anymore."

----


	22. orion in the sky

Here's the next chapter. For the record, the song they're listening to is "Rock Me Baby" by B.B. King. Thanks for reading!  


* * *

**ORION IN THE SKY  
May 2002**

He'd planned this.

Women are known for their remembrance of anniversaries. But Gracie, who had been on her feet all day, caring for a woman with placenta previa, found herself standing in front of him — completely ignorant until realization rushed over her like the gentle flow of a riverbed. The night breeze blew through her hair, and Gracie, simultaneously exhausted and elated, found herself speechless.

A lot had happened that day. Greg Pratt, a cocky new intern, had started at County, much to Gracie's chagrin. Pratt had made a point of belittling her position as nurse practitioner, earning himself a few harsh, unrepeatable words and the wrath of the lower nurses. Word had spread later on when Dr. Greene had tendered his final day, leaving without officially saying goodbye. Gracie, in the midst of all the chaos, had gotten a glimpse of him as he left; feeling a certain pang of sorrow in her gut. That was it for him, she knew.

Carter had been nowhere to be found when she clocked out. She took the El home alone, shoes crunching against the pavement as she made her way up two flights of stairs. Malucci was supposed to be out with a lady friend; Gracie expected to have the apartment alone for the night. Instead, as her footsteps slowed in front of number sixteen, she'd found herself staring at a note taped to the front door.

_Meet me on the roof_, it said.

It was his handwriting.

She had obliged, confused. Until she found him.

He stood at the far end of the roof balcony, hands in his pockets, set aglow by what seemed like hundreds of lit candles.

The breeze blew gently around them, but the flickering flames remained, dripping pools of white wax onto the rough flooring. Somewhere amidst the candle clutter, a small tape deck was quietly playing B.B. King. And she had no words.

He smiled.

Truthfully, her lack of expectation had been a month and a half coming; ever since he'd been stuck in a sexual harassment seminar with Susan, Kovac, Gallant and Abby. Thoughts had bubbled to the surface that she'd long believed she had stuffed away. It was good, it was always good... but her unspoken platitudes were helpless. It was purely in moments like this that he brought her back down to earth, reminded her of how good she had it. Really good.

"You're quite sneaky," Gracie finally managed to say.

He grinned and stepped forward, hands falling to her waist and drawing her close. "Some might say exceptionally skilled," Carter quipped.

"Should I say it?"

"With absolute feeling."

Her forehead pressed against his, and she whispered, "One year."

His fingers weaved through her hair, brushing it away from her temple as they remained close. "More if you'll let me," he murmured in return.

"I don't know how to let anyone else."

"Is that a good thing?"

"It's an 'I'm too in love with you to let you go' thing."

His nose pressed up against hers as he kissed her, soft and delicate. And for now, she could settle with the truth. It wasn't fear that would change it this time.

Not yet.

"I can live with that," he murmured against her mouth.

So could she.

----


	23. the letter

**THE LETTER  
July 2002**

The most tragic words to be read this year.

_Elizabeth is sitting with me drinking juice, but I'm all about the Mai Tais — the sun is going down; Rachel is dipping Ella's toes in the ocean as they head off on a quest for the perfect seashell._

"Wish you were here would have done it for me."

_Weirdly enough, I find myself thinking, "You know what would make this moment complete? Some jogger dropping to the sand, short of breath, so I can swoop in with a piece of bamboo to perform a nice, clean intubation, fix the guy up and send him off with a good dispo."_

Gracie was on Abby's side. Fantasizing about critical procedures wasn't exactly her idea of perfect sanity. But there were more important words.

The statement of Rachel finding her shell gave way to Carter and a sorrowful expression. Her heart sank. "He faxes the letter so he doesn't have to send the macadamia nuts," Abby remarked. Everyone laughed, but Carter was silent.

"What is it?" Susan prodded.

"From Dr. Corday," Carter stated, but Gracie could already feel what was coming next. Her hand moved to cover her mouth.

_Mark died this morning at 6:04 a.m. The sun was rising, his favorite time of day. I sent this on so that you might know he was thinking of you all, and that he appreciated knowing you would remember him well._

Silence.

Carter was holding it back. He hopped off the counter, handed the faxes to Frank and told him to post it on the floor. The whole thing. The group dissipated, and she is quietly dragged by Carter to follow, but the shock was palpable.

It was too fresh then. It would be too fresh even hours later.

"Africa, you goin' to the Lava Lounge with us?"

She peered at Gallant over an armful of suture kits for clarification.

"Me, Kovac, Lewis, Abby and Haleh—"

"Now?"

"Sounds like it."

Gracie dumped the stack on top of an unmade gurney. "Absolutely."

She escaped the clutches of the ER with the group, making their way over to a bar that Greene had held a party at once. The big tropical drinks had been Susan's idea. Gracie nursed one for the rest of the night, laughing and reminiscing with her co-workers about the best and worst of things. Weaver and her girlfriend showed up after a series of toasts. Carter showed up later, greeting Gracie with a kiss and shaking hands until Susan told him that Abby was outside.

She couldn't help the feeling in the pit of her stomach when he went outside to find her. When he disappeared for some time, only to return to pull her aside and tell her that Abby was drunk and he was taking her to a meeting. The sorrow remained even when everyone left and Gracie found herself crashing on Susan Lewis's couch. His text messages at six thirty in the morning went ignored.

She came in with Susan later that morning.

Gracie found herself watching as he cleaned out Greene's locker. Plastic name-tag pried off of metal, the removal of his stethoscope. She watched, chin in hand, as he took off his own device and looped that of his mentor's around his neck. It was poignant, enough to bring tears to her eyes. "I still can't believe it," she breathed. Carter glanced over his shoulder at her, looking sleep-deprived.

The death of a co-worker had brought remembrance of their own mortality. Some may think that the fact shouldn't have affected them so much, but... working among these people, for Gracie at least, had produced incredible bonding experiences. They had seen life and death together. Failure and triumph. Horror and joy. Greene had taught all of them a little about themselves.

"Big void," Carter echoed his earlier words to Kerry Weaver.

Gracie pursed her lips and smiled with teary eyes.

_... or that I didn't have things of a more personal nature to say._

It could wait.

----


	24. lockdown & chaos theory

**LOCKDOWN/CHAOS THEORY  
August 2002**

It was too hot outside to be enduring ACLS re-certification, Gracie was certain. Eighty degrees and a simulated code blue weren't a good mix. The very idea that, once this necessity was through, she would have to head down to the ER and clock in for the official beginning of her shift... plagued her as she endured. _Plagued_ was the only proper word. It was all she thought about as she sipped a bottle of apple juice while on break with Lily and Haleh.

"If they think they're calling us back down _now_..."

"I know. Someone's sorely mistaken."

Gracie had to agree. She could think of a million other things she'd rather be doing than skipping out of class early and doing actual _work_.

They had no idea what they would be in for when they finally began their descent back downstairs. Confusion followed the three of them like a cloud as they were forbidden from using the second floor elevator. The stairwell was useless. It took fifteen minutes and a freight elevator to bring them to the ambulance bay, where they found men in uniform and police blockades.

A bad feeling bubbled away in Gracie's gut.

The ER was on lockdown, a police officer said. No one was allowed back in, not even Weaver, the Chief of Emergency Medicine, when she arrived for her shift. Something contagious, another officer had said. Gracie would have embraced the panic if she'd had the time to — her boyfriend was inside, and _contagious_ could mean any number of things. The arrival of the public health department on scene only reinforced that thought. But paramedics arrived with a gunshot victim bleeding into her chest, and with the stern force of the Chicago PD at hand, Gracie, Lily and Haleh had no choice but to help Weaver treat the critically ill woman in the middle of the ambulance bay. It was a welcome distraction.

It didn't occur to her, as a news crew arrived and filmed Gracie assisting with a chest tube while Weaver snapped away at its reporter, that those quarantined inside would be watching the telecast. But she felt his presence.

The woman, stabilized in a very unsterile environment, needed surgery. The revelation that the Smallpox Response Team had been enacted was a shock that she had no time to ponder over — Romano was waiting with security at the freight elevator to accept their patient. "Sorry, ladies," Romano remarked as he and an OR nurse positioned the gurney inside the car, "can't let in any more germs than we already have."

The elevator doors shut in front of them, eliciting a swear from Weaver and officers ushering them away. As night began to fall, there was brief puzzlement at why they continued to stay — there wasn't much they could do from behind the barrier. The only explanation that Gracie could give was a sense of loyalty that inspired them to follow through. She wanted nothing more than to speak to Carter, to reassure herself that he would be okay, but brief conference by phone with Susan Lewis had told them that he and Abby were treating the infected kids. There would be no time to talk, especially when the CDC arrived on scene.

How does one cope with chaos? Gracie found that adrenaline worked wonders. They were whipped into action by the announcement that the entire hospital would be evacuated, coordinating efforts on the outside both large and small. The barrier was broken and the ER emptied, ambulances arriving to carry patients to every local hospital that could absorb the census. It was an act devoid of thought until Weaver, stating that they were down to the last of the evacuees, handed Gracie her walkie-talkie. Gracie stood in the middle of the asphalt, a damp sheen to her forehead as she looked at the device, confused.

Then, a crackle of static introduced his voice:

_"Gracie?"_

She whirled around, her honey brown hair tossed about in the makeshift wind. It took a moment for her to find him, that familiar face peering out a window overlooking the ambulance bay. She knew the spot, like she knew the layout of County by heart — he stood somewhere in chairs, in front of that same window she had helped carry a patient through during a power outage three years ago.

Her feet unfroze quickly, taking steps forward that grew from gentle to desperate. "Hi," she whispered into the walkie, the heavy black button pressed firmly beneath her thumb. His eyes studied her through the glass, his free hand pressed against the window, palm splayed out. She reached out to touch the spot he had chosen, and it was almost enough. "I can't believe they're quarantining you guys," she told the walkie once more. He seemed uneasy.

_"It's just two weeks. Nothing to worry about."_

"Yeah, but... monkey pox..."

_"A variant of monkey pox,"_ Carter corrected.

"Excuse me."

_"I don't even have a fever."_

Silence. She was finding it impossible to tear her eyes away from him. "I hear you did a really good job in there, John."

A pause.

_"I heard you weren't so bad yourself."_

That was when she caught sight of Abby somewhere around admit, watching the exchange take place. And she found herself speaking before thought could even take place. "Tell me it's no big deal, John," Gracie said.

Carter was silent. He seemed to know exactly what she meant, and that knowledge only served to highlight his apparent uneasiness.

The walkie raised weakly to his lips, and he said, _"It's no big deal."_

Her mouth pursed and her hand withdrew from the windowpane. She nodded, and her anger was apparent as she told him, "see you in two weeks," switched the channel of the walkie and stormed away.

As the lights of the newscopters circled overhead, an impetuous and fearless rush into the unknown was born.

----


	25. insurrection

As always, thank you to my readers.  


* * *

**INSURRECTION  
September 2002**

"You _kissed_ her?"

The ER was more than overflowing that day, but Gracie couldn't suppress her fury. Patients swarmed around her, but in that moment, the world could have stopped for all she knew. Carter was trying to drag her out of the fray, but he seemed to be unaware of the fact that it was figuratively inescapable. "Not here, Gracie," Carter pleaded, but she was dragging her feet.

"Not here? Not _here_?"

He managed to get her out to the ambulance bay, near the same spot that she had stood in a few weeks prior and spoken to him through the window, but by then Gracie was seething. And she knew, in a way, she didn't exactly have reason to be. She seemed to be expecting this. Maybe had been all along. After his two weeks of quarantine were up, she'd returned to him, a little more pacified, but just as concerned. Frightened. This was how it was going to end, she thought, as he paced in front of her, grasping at straws.

"You choose _now_ to tell me that you _kissed_ her, and you have the _audacity_ to tell me _not here_?"

"It was a spur of the moment thing," Carter spluttered, "we weren't thinking! You don't know what it was like in there — how draining it was—"

"So you choose the moment that you're involuntarily separated from your girlfriend to _make out_ with the woman you've been _lusting_ over for _months_ now?"

"Nothing was going on with me and Abby!"

"Was, _was_ going on."

"And nothing else _is_ happening, _will_ be happening—"

"Is that supposed to reassure me?" Gracie snapped.

"It's supposed to make you understand that I don't want anybody else but you!" Carter yelled, and he was so loud that she found herself unmoving.

Silence.

"Funny way you have of showing it," Gracie breathed.

"Oh, right," Carter's tone was sarcastic, his chin slightly tilted as he nodded incessantly. "Right. I forgot, I'm not allowed to be the one that makes mistakes."

"No, not when it comes to this, you're not!"

"You're acting like you _wanted_ this to happen!"

"Why the _hell_ would I _want_ this to happen?"

He said nothing. The look he gave her was pointed. Suddenly, Gracie was laughing. "Oh, no," she said, "no. Do _not_ make this about me."

"You wanna say it, or should I?"

"That _does not_ change what you did!"

Carter was exasperated. "I _told_ you so we could make it better."

"What do you want me to say, John?" Gracie spat, "no big deal? This is nothing? Go ahead and do what you want, I don't care?"

A breeze whipped through his hair as he sighed, avoiding her upset gaze. "I said I was sorry. I don't know what more you want me to say."

Maybe he was right. Maybe she was daring him to dig themselves out, to prove her wrong. To make it better. But the culmination of fears, both big and small, were becoming almost too much to bear. Present fervor made her unnegotiable.

"I can't talk to you right now." And she walked away.

The odd thing about this, the uncertainty that bubbled away as Carter slowly made his way back to admit, was the fact that it was impossible to feel fear even with such obvious trouble ahead. Perhaps that was naive. Or perhaps it was wisdom. It was impossible to know. Frank gave Carter a knowing look as he circled back around the counter. "You know," Frank began, and Carter was certain he didn't want to hear it, "women are like phones. They love to be held, talked to, but if you press the wrong button... you'll be disconnected."

Carter found himself rolling his eyes. "Thanks, Frank."

But no sooner than the announcement came that Abby had let a young prostitute go instead of detaining her for the detox bed they had worked so hard to procure, Frank was hissing in Carter's direction and pointing.

Suddenly, everyone's attention was focused in one place.

"Get the shot, now—"

Mullen, a known drug-seeker, had Chen in a sort of choke hold, a pistol trained on Gracie and Pratt. "Now!" Chen was gasping with fear. Pratt and Gracie held expressions of unsteady emotion. Carter's stomach leapt into his throat. The pistol was returned to Chen's head as he and Abby tried to approach. "No, no, no," Mullen yelped, "no! Don't! Nobody move."

"Alright, it's cool," Pratt called out steadily. "Nobody move!"

The ER seemed to come to a standstill.

"No, it is not," Mullen interrupted Pratt. "It is _not_ cool. I am in pain. I _need_ Demerol and you're going to give it to me."

"Yes I am," Pratt agreed. "Gracie, go to the drug lockup, get a case of Demerol—"

"I don't need a case, I just need my shot, of 150 milligrams, okay?"

"150 milligrams, then. See, there's no problem, it's alright; look, no problem—"

She felt Carter's gaze fixed on her, unwavering, as she walked cautiously to the drug lockup, Mullen's voice screaming at Pratt following her. "_NO, WE GOT A PROBLEM!_ This here's supposed to be a county hospital..."

Gracie hissed at Erin Harkins, a med student, as she unlocked the Demerol from the cabinet. "Call the police."

"What?"

"Call the police!"

"What's taking so long in there?" Mullen yelled.

Gracie's hands shook for a moment. "I'm coming." She turned around, supplies in hand, and returned just as cautiously to the curtain area.

"You care, because I'm making you care," Mullen sniffed, "because I got this gun. 'Cause I'm the one who gets to decide."

"You don't have to decide," Pratt coaxed.

"No, I get to decide who's gonna feel pain and who's not gonna feel pain," Mullen snapped, "just like you. Every day." He paused, his attention fixed on Gracie. "Show it to me," he demanded. "Show me it. Show me the label."

Mullen trained the gun on Gracie, and she was frozen for a moment. She gingerly held up the tiny glass bottle, revealing to him the label. "Okay, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, hurry up." The gun returned to Chen as Gracie drew out the medication.

"We're gonna help you," Carter called out, and the hint of mild desperation in his voice was not lost on Gracie. "We're gonna give you the shot, why don't you just put the gun down?"

"I'll hold onto it for just a second," Mullen retorted.

"Where do you want it?" Gracie asked. Mullen pulled off his long-sleeve and pushed up the arm of his undershirt, and all was silent as Gracie swiped the skin of his bicep with an alcohol swab and injected him with the Demerol. Prescribing laws went right out the window when a man was holding a gun at you.

She finished quickly, no sudden movements. She stepped back and heard the tail end of their conversation, praying that this would be enough.

"Why'd you want to be a doctor?" Mullen asked of Pratt.

"Excuse me?"

"Was it the money?"

Pratt was cautious. "That was part of it."

"Yeah, what's the other part?"

"It's complicated."

"Well, explain it to me," Mullen shot back. A pause. "I mean, you can't tell me that you actually wanted to _help_ people." Silence, while Chen appeared to be trying very hard not to have a nervous breakdown. "Or maybe you did, right, maybe... maybe you all wanted to help people. But then you realized that there's just_ too many_ people to help. Who's gonna survive?"

Mullen slowly released Chen and ambled toward a frozen Gracie. He kissed the temple of her forehead, and she did not move. He pressed his forehead against hers, and she did not move. He thanked her, and Gracie said nothing. He began to walk away, but stopped and pointed the gun back at Pratt and the others, screaming something about remembering it for next time.

He left in a daze through the ambulance bay doors.

The only relief Gracie could find was the knowledge that she had knowingly, with emotions under cool pressure, detained the offender with an overdose of Demerol. She, Carter and Weaver would find him passed out in the ambulance bay after the shock wore off.

But it would remain, in little ways. They had been affected profoundly that day, Carter especially. He had seen friends, not just friends, but the woman he loved with a gun pointed at them that day, with little action on his part.

The blame he placed on himself resulted in the metal detectors.

And later, the walk-out of a majority of the ER's staff.

Weaver's agitation dictated their afternoon, but Carter's fervor could not be ignored. Lewis pointed it out, Abby made remarks — and yet, noticeably, Gracie was nowhere to be found. Someone had to treat patients.

She would precipitate a truce, in more ways than one, as an orange-blue haze filled the sky. Cardigan wrapped around her scrubs, arms folded, tennis shoes crunching against the asphalt as an audience observed her approach him in the center of things; where the leader of the insurrection rightfully belonged.

So many words hung on the tip of his tongue. But she took them away when she walked right up and kissed him — no greeting, no segueway, just the cool presence of her lips against his and her fingertips in his hair. A low, gossipy murmur from the gathered went ignored. He knew what this meant.

"I can't lose you," she finally whispered against him.

His hand lowered to grip her hip and pull her close, his white lab coat and teal colored scrubs clashing with her attire. He inhaled her scent, captured her mouth briefly, and relished in the fact that after today's panic, he was holding her. Alive. Safe. Whole. He cradled both sides of her head with his hands, kissed both of her eyelashes, and murmured, "I'm going to pay for this, aren't I?"

That was the first smile from her he'd seen all day.

----


	26. first snowfall

**FIRST SNOWFALL  
November 2002**

Abby felt nothing for him, she knew that.

But it was difficult not to feel this way. Inadequacy dominated, which was hard to ignore in the throes of things. Gracie was finding herself increasingly aware of her dependency on Carter, the stirrings of which met her in the early hours of evening as she watched Abby fret over the disappearance of her brother — and Carter, acting as only a friend would be expected, doing everything he could to assist. It was quite the internal struggle she faced.

The problem with knowing, and accepting, these feelings, was that they gave way to a further understanding. The fact that she could no longer rely on herself. That she was no longer the Gracie of yesterday; and change is a painful thing to embrace. Watching now, as the crisp night air suggested an oncoming of snow, she was reminded of that past Halloween — of being the only two in costume, of quarrels over feelings and approaches. They always seemed to find a way through.

Gallant and Abby were sent on their way with dress uniform in tow, and Gracie was left to ponder the first snow as night shift began. Carter briefly mentioned the possibility of joining them in Nebraska, but after the first or second mention of the topic it became clear, for many reasons, why that wouldn't work. Not as much for the sake of feelings as for the fact that over three feet of snow was dumped over Chicago in the course of seven hours. As morning light broke, Gracie found herself standing on the stoop of the ambulance bay, wrapped in a thick coat and mittens and cradling a steaming cup of tea. Her breath expelled visibly, mingling hot steam with cool air, and she idly kicked aside a drift of snow.

She heard his approach before actually seeing him.

"I'm going to need a dogsled just to get home," Gracie remarked dryly, gaze fixated ahead of herself as she raised the mug of tea to her lips.

Carter's smirk was audible as he joined her side. A pause. "Should I order a pair of huskies?"

Gracie actually laughed. "Or a snowmobile."

"A nice neon yellow."

His arm trailed around her side, and she leaned into him, chuckling under her breath as he kissed the temple of her forehead. "I think they'll be able to see us in a blizzard," she pointed out.

"A blizzard, a thunderstorm... it doesn't matter."

"Pretty sure that's not how it works."

He emitted a laugh, pulling her closer and inhaling the scent of her hair. "We've got multiples coming in... three criticals. Something about a drunk and a snowman," Carter trailed off, only to be interrupted a moment later.

"I thought we were closed to ambulance traffic."

"I know."

"We're snowed in..."

"I know."

"This sucks."

He laughed and kissed her cheek. "I know," he replied, his grip loosening.

She wasn't sure what it was inside of her that possessed the strength, or the masochism, to say what she did next. Perhaps it was a sign of growth. "John," Gracie began softly, as if trying to locate the right words to say, "if you want to go ahead to Omaha... you should go."

Carter gave pause. His gaze on her was serious and fixated, and though she stood a mere arm's reach away, he did not step closer. "Gracie... you don't have to..."

"No, I mean it."

For a moment, he said nothing. "Are you sure?"

Gracie pursed her lips, the slightest hint of a self-conscious smile making way. "You need to be there for your friend, John. So be there."

He tilted her chin up gently and pressed his lips to hers, a kiss of gratitude, of appreciation for the sacrifice she was making and the difficulty she was so obviously acknowledging. "If I can ever make it out of here to Midway..." Carter trailed off against her mouth, as the shrieks of Harkins and Malik playing in the snow could be heard, "... thank you."

These were the first shaky steps forward.

----


	27. hindsight

**HINDSIGHT  
December 2002**

She sank lower into his lap, her spine pressed against him as they laughed with relish at Susan's secret santa gift. Susan didn't seem to understand the point of edible underwear — something that really shouldn't have been unexpected, as gag gifts were a tradition among this bunch — but the collective group gathered in Susan's living room, drinking egg nog under the lights of a Christmas tree, still found it amusing. The scent of rum and pine was heavy in the air.

And for Gracie, who shared a chair with Carter, gripping a cup of egg nog and cherishing the subtle closeness the two were sharing, this was the most pleasant of nights. There was nothing to worry about, no work to be done or any of life's little necessities to handle. At least for her. Carter's evening fate was evidenced in the subtle twitching of his fingers on her knee, heavy with the knowledge that their time here was short. He had a shift that night.

"What's to understand about edible undies?" Abby could be heard saying.

"I think it's supposed to help you catch a man or something," Chuny mused as she crossed the living room to hand Carter his present.

"It's the thought that counts."

Gracie chuckled as she watched him unwrap his secret santa gift, chuckles that turned into an uproar of laughter as he removed a pair of red furry handcuffs from the box and whooped with delight. He twirled them around for a moment as the group expressed their amusement.

"Africa, that's the gift that keeps on giving," Chen called out, and growled like a tiger. Gracie found herself burying her face in Carter's shoulder as she laughed.

"Should I not throw these away?" Carter murmured jokingly in her ear.

Gracie peered up at him with quirked brows and an amused expression as Abby unwrapped her present on the other side of the room — a snowglobe. No one would fess up to gifting it, and Gracie took that as her cue to ask if they were done.

"You're not leaving, are you?" Susan asked earnestly.

She hopped off of his lap and set her cup of egg nog on a nearby table as Carter stood to put on his coat. "I gotta work tonight," Carter told the group, earning collective groans of disappointment. He helped Gracie slip on her own coat when he was done.

"Yeah, and I've got to get home and start packing," Gracie pointed out. The two of them were catching a plane to Boston at ten o'clock in the morning, to visit Carter's father. She'd been so busy working that week, that she had yet to start packing — the rare gift of a night off had presented itself with not much opportunity to relax.

"Merry Christmas," Carter wished the collective group.

"Feliz Navidad!"

"Ciao!"

He led her out of the home and into the crisp night air, his hand pressed gently against the small of her back. They walked about a block to his Jeep, placed just like this, and when they arrived at the vehicle, Carter stood in front of her and gingerly pressed a kiss to each of her eyelids. Their breaths intermingled visibly due to the temperature, and as they enjoyed this silent moment alone, the purpose became clear. Here was routine. Here was the very outline of time to come.

How else do you embrace such an ideal except with a smile?

----


	28. no good deed goes unpunished

**NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED  
January 2003**

Gracie was at her wit's end with Kovac.

She was handling a woman in renal failure who unfortunately, that day, was suffering from a post-dialysis fever and low sats on room air. Dialysis had been done a few hours prior, and chest x-rays showed increased pulmonary edema. Luck of the draw landed her with Kovac signing off, and Gracie was more than displeased. So much so that she joined Luka, Abby and Carter in a trauma.

"Luka..." Gracie sing-songed, tapping her chart with one hand as she observed her boyfriend helping Kovac free an animal activist from a trap. "Hey, Luka, do you really want me to kill this patient with a 1500 cc fluid bolus, or can I d/c it?"

"What's her BP?"

"163/87, pulse 82," she replied absently. The vitals weren't terrible, and besides, she was far more distracted with the subtle glances Carter was giving her.

"Well, it's on the sepsis order set," Kovac remarked.

"She's a renal failure and _just_ had dialysis," Gracie retorted, one hand coming to rest on her hip as she dangled her chart in mid-air. Abby looked mildly amused amidst her busywork. "I'm not going to give this to my patient unless you give me a good reason why."

"She's probably septic."

Gracie exhaled a sigh. "She _might_ have something, but she's not _really_ septic; she has a low-grade fever, reasonable vitals, normal white count. She's fluid overloaded, and this will kill her unless you plan on setting up dialysis to be done sometime in the next hour — which, if that's the case, I'd be happy to put you on hold with the renal service."

Kovac didn't seem to be really affected by her words. His attention was focused on the patient in front of them, who just happened to look thoroughly confused by the conversation taking place around her. "Okay, fine, if you want me to d/c it, I will."

"Thank you," Gracie sing-songed once more as she handed over her chart to Kovac for sign-off. Abby gave her a secretive wink as they did so — she understood. Sometimes doctors just got lazy. It was a pain in the ass for nurses to have to fight for their patients, and even more so for nurse practitioners to act as the middle ground.

"So, what's it gonna be?" Kovac asked Carter absently, returning the chart to Gracie and going back to his previous work of removing the trap from their patient's arm. "Chechnya or the Congo?"

Gracie gave pause, glancing up from where she was about to leave the room. Carter looked uneasy. "Oh, um... still thinking about it."

"Thinking about what?" Gracie asked, surprise heavy in her voice.

Kovac looked towards her. "Carter's going away with the _Alliance de Medicine Internacionale_."

She didn't think it was possible for her eyebrows to shoot any higher up.

"It's just something I'm thinking about doing in the spring," Carter tried to explain to her, trying to play it off despite his obvious uneasiness. It was clear that Kovac wasn't supposed to mention something so prematurely.

"Oh, he's going; I've done it three times, makes what we do here look like—"

They removed the trap. "You got this?" Carter interrupted. Kovac responded positively, and Carter left the room, with Gracie quickly following after him. Abby could be seen giving Luka a stern look as the two left.

She found him outside.

"Chechnya?"

Carter sighed heavily. "Yeah, we talked about this..."

"Uh, no we didn't?" Gracie followed alongside him as he started to walk down the hall.

"Yeah, remember that time I said I thought I'd like to practice medicine abroad?"

"I thought you meant Paris, or something."

"Well, they desperately need doctors," Carter remarked as they approached admit.

"So do we!"

Just as suddenly as the subject came up, it was dropped, leaving Gracie to stand with confusion and something like disorientation as Carter was caught up with the discussion of co-workers. It was easy to see it as an escape, as avoiding of an issue. But it was all Gracie could think about as she went back to work.

And when she thought about it, it made sense. His growing dissatisfaction with their workplace. Like a couple of weeks ago, when getting him to give away a check at a benefit at the behest of his grandmother had been like pulling teeth. Like how he didn't even know why he was a doctor anymore. He was frustrated, she knew that. He wanted something better, to do something more. The feeling had been downspiraling for a while now — perhaps ever since his stabbing.

She just didn't think she would be the one caught in the middle.

"You've been at County for ten years," Carter told her later over coffee and tea, "haven't you ever... thought... about what else is out there?"

"I've never needed to," Gracie murmured.

"And yet, now, you won't even at least stay open to the idea?"

"I thought you were just thinking about it."

"Well..."

"At least, that's what you're telling me, but Luka made it sound like you were pretty set," Gracie pointed out, while Carter grew silent. He watched her carefully.

"He's a big advocate of the program."

"That's what they all say."

"You could come with me."

Silence. Gracie laughed, a full-bellied laugh. "To Chechnya?"

"Or the Congo. You speak French, don't you?"

"Maybe enough to get you in trouble with some countrymen."

"So we'll learn together."

"And live in the Congo?"

"It's only for, like, two weeks."

Silence. Gracie gripped her styrofoam cup between both hands, and for a moment, nothing was said. The hot steam of tea blasted her in the face. "What do you say we go out to dinner tonight?" Carter asked, and he had that look in his eye, the one she'd come to associate with whenever he was feeling particularly sure of himself. "Someplace nice, someplace romantic."

It took her a minute to respond, and then she could only nod. He leaned forward and kissed her, and for now, it would all be set aside.

She would meet him later at the restaurant, coming on the tail-end of his after hours stop off at the alleged clinic of old Dr. McNulty, an elderly diabetic Carter had been seeing in the ER. He looked distraught. The clinic was gone, he'd said, looking frustrated and disconcerted over a menu of steak, in an atmosphere of dress clothes. He'd given a check with many zeros to a man who subsequently disappeared. It only proved to further cement his feelings.

Her worries were kept to herself.

----


	29. a boy falling out of the sky

As always, thank you readers. All of you.

* * *

**A BOY FALLING OUT OF THE SKY  
February 2003**

He came home early from a vacation to Belize.

Early morning hung over Chicago as he let himself into an apartment that brother and sister shared. This wasn't unusual. It was dark inside, the quiet sounds of Malucci's snores drifting down the hallway and unpleasantly meeting his ears. He dropped his bags by the front door — stopping here hadn't exactly been the plan, but overwhelming impulse won out. He tiptoed through the home, floorboards creaking beneath him as he made his way to Gracie's room; the door to which opened easily for him, shutting quietly in return and revealing nothing more than the simple sight of a streetlight's glow casting shadows across the bed of a deeply snoozing Gracie.

He watched her for a moment. Beautiful, she was, even with the dimmest of lighting. To him, at least. A sigh escaped from his lips, and he kicked off his shoes and took cautious steps towards her, sliding into bed opposite and eyeing her features carefully for any signs of stirring. One gentle finger reached out to brush against her nose. It twitched sleepily. "Gracie," he whispered hopefully.

"Mmm."

"Gracie—" Another simple brushing of skin against skin.

It took a while for her to respond, the sudden tearing away from sleep seeming, at least briefly, most unwelcome. She stirred again, cracked an eyelid, blinked and murmured exhaustedly, "You're home early."

"I want to marry you."

"What?"

With her sleep-tinged confusion, it was clear just why he had left early.

"I want to marry you," Carter repeated, this time a little slower, a little more heartfelt. If she hadn't been awake before, she was now. Gracie stared back at him from her place nestled under the covers, eyes wide and shocked. He wasn't joking — no, it was clear just how serious he was. And perhaps that was what scared her.

She said the first thing that came to mind.

"Why the hell would you want to marry me?"

His gaze on her was unwavering. "Because..." Carter began assuredly, "I can't imagine... doing _anything_ without you."

Gracie blinked and said nothing. This was disconcerting. She was still, for all intents and purposes, pulling herself out of slumber, and it would have been quite easy to convince herself this was a dream, if she hadn't in fact carried the very real feeling of his weight in bed next to her. The silence hovered around them.

And then he shifted, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a velvet box.

"John..."

He said nothing in return, merely opened the small square box and revealed an antique diamond ring. She felt her eyes rolling to the back of her head — not out of disgust, or annoyance, but out of sheer disbelief. "You come home early from a _diving_ trip to _Belize_, and wake me up at—" a pause here, as she checked the alarm clock on her nightstand, "—_four thirty_ in the morning to _propose_?"

"I'm not drunk."

"I didn't say that you were."

"I just discovered my priorities."

She quirked a sleepy brow. "And your priorities involve marrying me and running off to the jungle, not necessarily in that order?"

"Something like that."

Gracie felt breathless. Too many thoughts were swirling in her head, and to have such a big question hanging over her when she had to be at work in two hours... wasn't exactly a joy to deal with. "I have to think about it."

He tried to disguise his upset, but she knew him well enough to know it when she saw it. "Really," she spoke up quickly, gently touching his cheek, her eyes falling briefly on the ring that must have been handed down in his family for generations, "I just... need to think. And I need you to be patient enough to just lay here next to me and let it be."

Silence. He pursed his lips together and gave the slightest of nods.

Gracie kissed him lightly, and his head fell to press against her collarbone, and they lay tangled together like that for what felt like ages; her eyes fixated on the ceiling, dilated with quick thinking and a disturbed heart.

Only the simplest of things could be true.

----


	30. foreign affairs

**FOREIGN AFFAIRS  
March 2003**

Beautiful arrangements of pink and purple flowers surrounded her, highlighted by the very loud and very peaceful silence of a pristine cemetery.

It was different this time. Before, mourning had been offset by a flute/harp duo and out of place feelings — honoring a man that she hadn't known quite as well, but nevertheless kept in respected graces. Here was different. Here was where she walked around a sumptuous house with complete ease, knowledge of where everything was placed and the name of every person who moved within its walls. Here she honored a woman she had come to know very fondly.

He held her hand as they sat in the front row, a group of others standing behind them, joined only by his father and a friend of Gamma's. He gripped it tightly, his face impassive. Gracie adjusted the hem of her formal black dress, swallowed roughly, and tried not to cry as they listened to the preacher's words.

This was painful for him, she knew. He had loved Gamma like a mother. She had been much like one. And with the stipulation in her will that he be made president of the Carter Family Foundation, the game had changed — he approached this send-off with the air of someone doing business, of someone greeting and sharing drinks with people he hardly knew. An air of obligation.

He was keeping the family running now.

The hardest thing about all of this was knowing what was coming — knowing that there were new obligations when old ones were already set in stone. It was a done deal. He was leaving for the Congo in a few weeks. She had balked at first, but it was what he wanted. He had grown increasingly disillusioned with the world around him. "It's not Rio," he had said, "but it's not here."

She wondered what it would take, for him to find himself, to find his place. She was secure in the knowledge that she had become the only certain thing for him, but she couldn't help but wonder where the breaking point would be. Maybe this was it. Maybe it was already speeding rapidly towards them. She gently rubbed her thumb rhythmically against the top of his hand, wished this could all be over, and briefly reflected on the idea that at least his father liked her.

Small solaces.

Meanwhile, antique diamonds glinted on a very important finger.

----


	31. kisangani & now what?

**KISANGANI/NOW WHAT?  
April 2003**

How do you explain this?

The enveloping feeling of culture shock, one place very different from the other, sweeping you in like a riptide? How do you explain what it is like to experience something very different than the status quo? Something that may very well be the norm — hidden away in the shadows and ignored? It is awe-inspiring. It is a few too many things, but for Carter, most of all, it was life-changing.

Two weeks in West Africa gave way to a return in the middle of the night, a taxicab drop-off amidst a gentle rain that glowed under street lights. He came straight from the airport, after his connection in London was delayed. He let himself into Gracie's shared apartment, set his things down by the door, moved familiarly through darkened spaces — things he had done a million times before. But his heart was elsewhere. He was different now, very different.

He just didn't know how.

Once again he found himself stepping quietly into Gracie's room, the simple sight of street lights sending a glow through the window and highlighting her sleeping features giving him pause. There wasn't a moment that had gone by while he was gone that he didn't think of her. He wondered if she knew that. He wondered if it was possible to carry your heart and still be in a place you felt passionately about. Danger. Poverty. War. Was it possible to have your cake and eat it, too? What _was_ possible? Would anyone ever understand?

Maybe not. Nothing he had just experienced felt real.

And yet it was.

He kicked off his shoes and slid with ease into bed next to her, wrapping his arm protectively over her side. She barely even stirred. He fiddled absently with the ring on her left hand, the one _he_ had given her, feeling the smooth stubble of diamonds beneath his fingertips as he pressed his face in the crook of her neck. He was here, present and accounted for. Was it a dream?

A neverending blackness dominated his sleep.

When morning came, or at least a brighter version of it, Gracie woke to the most comforting feeling she'd experienced in ages — arms she had come to believe she fit perfectly in, a smell she had come to equate with happiness, a touch she had come to associate with the yearning that sent her skin singing. Relief.

They made love as the city of Chicago began another day, slow but electric, meaningful in every sense of the word. The blissful silence of early morning was quickly interrupted, though — by the sound of little Joey stomping down the hallway singing a made-up song and the nagging realization of work to be done.

They arrived at County together, welcomed by the noisy ruckus of major renovations being done to the ER proper. That was the first moment she noticed the shell-shock, heavy upon his face. She had grown used to the presence of construction while he was away, and was better equipped to handle the added stress on her patient load. Moreover, she had grown used to the looks that the nurses were giving her on a daily basis. The gossip. They had seen the ring.

"You're wearing his damn ring," Susan Lewis remarked over a comatose patient in Trauma One, "he _proposes_, and he has no apparent desire to stay in Chicago with you?"

"Apparently the Congo is very life-affirming," Gracie shrugged.

"I'm sure I get the same feeling from a pair of clean underwear and a pint of Häagen Dazs."

"All I know is that he said his life has changed, he just isn't sure how."

"Well, sure."

"I just don't know what to say about him wallowing until he figures it out."

Susan's expression was pointed. "Part of me thinks he already has."

Gracie couldn't help but believe she was right.

Now what?

Everything changed when a new med student intercepted a call.

She found herself hovering around the shell of admit, the rest of the on-duty staff biting their nails and exchanging nervous glances as Carter busied himself on the phone. Kovac — dead? Possibly. It didn't make sense, but then again... it did. Was it real? Was Carter really exercising all his available resources to confirm the news, to track down information, to do anything? It didn't feel like it. Kovac didn't have any family. The sadness was weighing in long before it was even appropriate.

It was mind boggling. Like how it was when, frustrated and exhausted at getting nowhere, Carter began to pack a bag found in the makeshift lounge with medical supplies stolen from the emergency department.

"You can't be serious."

"There's a twelve o'clock flight to Paris, and then I can connect to Kinshasa with a four hour layover."

"You're going to go all the way back there? Why?"

"Because I left him there."

"Where?" Gracie demanded as she followed him to the drug lock-up.

"At a clinic in Matenda."

"There has to be something else, something we haven't tried—"

"I should have stayed."

"There has to be _somewhere_ else you can get his contact information from!"

"Like it was so dangerous the first time."

"You almost got yourself _shot_ in the _head_!" Gracie nearly screamed, causing all movement to cease. He very suddenly found himself regretting telling her anything. Carter inhaled deeply, took one look at her, and said,

"This is something I _have_ to do."

She chased him through the ambulance bay doors as he left. "You don't have to go tonight," Gracie pleaded with him, "just wait until it's a bit safer—"

"I'll be gone a couple days; I'll call you when I get to Paris."

"John, please."

"I'll call you."

He started to walk away, and she remained standing in the middle of the sidewalk, watching him leave. Her next words made him stop in his tracks. "And what am I supposed to do when I get that call?" Gracie yelled after him.

Several yards away, his feet were cemented to the ground. He turned to face her slowly. She jumped on the chance, anger lilting in her voice. "When I get that call, saying that _John is dead_, what am I supposed to do? Run off to the jungle to find you? Call your father and say, guess what? Your son died at the hands of a guerilla army! Time to order the canapes!"

Carter was silent, his gaze on her stern and fixated.

Gracie expelled a desperate breath.

She understood his reasonings. But she also understood danger when it was staring her in the face. A single tear trickled down her cheek.

He took several steps towards her, gripped the back of her neck and pressed a lingering kiss to the trail her tear left behind. "When I come back," Carter whispered roughly, "we're calling churches."

And then he left.

She was only aware of how long she remained standing there, watching the space she had seen him disappear from, when Abby came out to find her.

----


	32. dear abby

Wow. What do I even say? This is the final chapter of "The Difference." Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all of your hits and kind reviews. I hope you'll continue them and follow me to the next part of Carter and Gracie's story, "Use Somebody." Please keep an eye out for it, or put me on author alert so you can be notified as soon as it's posted... which should be relatively soon! Thanks again, please review and enjoy!

* * *

**DEAR ABBY  
May 2003**

She was working a princess that day.

A four hour shift that she couldn't help but be angered by. Romano was cutting the nursing schedule so he could bring in cheaper prospects, and not only were the senior nurses being hurt by it, but Gracie was as well. As one of the very few nurse practitioners staffing the ER, Romano saw their position as an unnecessary expense. It felt more like a bias. Why staff nurse practitioners when they had doctors? With the renovations complete, there were more beds but fewer nurses to take care of them. It was pissing everyone off. The nurses were threatening a petition, but Gracie didn't see how any of it could be beneficial.

Then again, it was hard to see a lot of things as hopeful these days.

By the time Gracie arrived at one to relieve Abby from triage duty, most of the nurses had already staged a walk-out. Conni had hollered at her from across the street at Dunkin Donuts as she made her way into County, leaving Gracie to wave off frustrations. Somebody had to work, even if others had to stand up for ethics.

"Luka's back," Abby told her as they traded places at triage. "I haven't had a chance to even say hello to him."

Gracie eased into her seat in front of the window, watching the patients circle around out in chairs. Ever since renovations had been completed, this new area of triage had come to be known as 'the cage,' where the patients circled around like sharks. It seemed quite fitting, particularly today. "Is he doing better?"

"I have no idea. Some woman's lurking around with him, Gillian, I think, is her name? I don't know," Abby sighed. She looked harried. "But I've already got a stack of charts waiting for me, so godspeed."

And she was left to starting charts and prioritizing chief complaints.

By the beginning of her third hour in front of the triage window, Gracie was truthfully fried. That was never more obvious than it was when a woman with a French-Canadian accent and a hesitant smile approached her from behind. She nearly jumped out of her seat when the unfamiliar woman said her name. "Sorry," the woman apologized, "but you're Gracie, right?"

Gracie scrutinized the woman. "Yes... do I know you?"

"I'm Gillian. I worked with John and Luka in the Congo."

Suddenly, it made sense. Gracie relaxed, apologized, and earned herself a dismissive laugh. "I remembered you from a picture John showed me," Gillian explained, "he talked about you all the time. I feel like I already know you."

Gracie chuckled politely, the sort of uncomfortable pause one expects with small talk. "How's Luka?" Gracie found herself asking. "Malaria... I can't believe it."

"He's still spiking on quinine, but lucid between fevers." A pause. Gillian smiled, then her eyes lit up as if remembering something. "Oh!" She pulled an envelope out of her bag. "John asked Luka to give you this."

Confused, Gracie accepted the envelope. She blinked and smiled cautiously. "He wrote me a letter?"

"Now there's a lost art," Frank piped up from nearby.

"Uh, well, it's hard to find a phone and when you do, they seldom work," Gillian explained. Gracie pursed her lips and nodded. She knew that already — she had grown used to the rare phone calls from Carter while he was overseas. It was painful, but she had no choice but to be understanding about it.

She opened the envelope and pulled out a letter as Gillian asked Frank about the now-defunct Doc Magoo's. Gracie scanned it quickly.

He missed her, it said. He needed her. He wanted her to join him in Kisangani. He had an open ticket waiting for her.

He wanted her to leave Chicago and go to Africa.

For him.

"You know," Gillian spoke up conversationally, "I think John... really found himself over there. You should know that."

Gracie, breathless, folded up the letter delicately. A corner of her mouth upturned, and she glanced over the beautiful woman. "I had been hoping he wasn't missing."

"Ah, well. Isn't everyone who goes there?"

Gracie smiled again, politely, excused herself, and hurried out from the ambulance bay doors, exclaiming something about taking a break.

It wasn't until she got outside that she felt a little less claustrophobic.

She bent over, hands on her knees as she gulped down large gasps of air. He wanted her to go. He was staying, and he wanted her to come with him.

This letter was the first confirmation in days that he was still safe... and he was honestly expecting her to consider his request?

Sitting on it wasn't an option. Thinking about it wasn't an option. They were engaged to be married. This was a decision she had to immediately act on if she intended on making him family. Part of her was angry with him for even expecting this of her. Where do you draw the line between being supportive and being outright against it?

If she were to say yes, she had to drop everything. She had to march right back inside, resign her post, get her shots and collect enough clothes and her passport to get herself on a plane to West Africa. She had to act now, because if she waited much longer, she feared landing in the Congo to discover she was too late. That he was gone, or kidnapped, or killed.

If she were to say no...

Could she really do that? Could she give up love for the safety of her comfort zone? It was so easy. All she had to do was rip up the letter. Throw it in the trash can. Walk back inside and finish her shift. She wouldn't risk her life, or risk being present for the death of someone deeply loved. It would mean losing the best relationship she'd ever had, but at least denial was comfortable.

Her hands trembled. She straightened. In the distance, the familiar sound of ambulance sirens could be heard.

One more time, she did what she did best. She ran away.

Shaking hands tore up his letter. They threw them in a nearby trash can and wiped sweat from her palms onto her already dirtied scrub pants.

She turned around and went back inside.

She would not be catching a flight to Kinshasa.

**THE END!**


End file.
